Dr. Michael Bernhardt

Primary Focus & Experience

Michael Bernhardt provides broad practice in corporate/M&A including private equity. Michael represents national and international corporations and sponsors on investments and cross-border transactions and advises regularly on private equity transactions including public-to-privates, LBOs and MBOs.

Recent Project Samples

• Ardian on the acquisition of a majority stake in Munich Electrification.
• LEA Partners on the sale of refine.
• Consortium of German Entrepreneurs on the acquisition of premium upholstered furniture manufacturer Rolf Benz.
• Ad Hoc Committee of Noteholders on the restructuring of Standard Profil.
• German Equity Partners V on the sale of YellowFox to Peter Möhrle Holding.
• Levine Leichtman Capital Partners on the investment in ENTRO Group.
• Sartorius on the strategic acquisition of MatTek Corp. and Visikol Inc.
• Shareholders on the sale of hkp///group to Mercer.
• Shareholders on the sale of BETA CAE Systems.
• EMZ on the acquisition of a majority stake in imes-icore.
• LEA Venturepartner on its $500M Series B financing round of Aleph Alpha led by Schwarz Group.
• Shareholders of Coriolis Pharma in connection with a financial investment by KKR.
• A fund managed by ECM and the management on the sale of their stakes in the software company PikeTec to Synopsys.
• Levine Leichtman Capital Partners on the investment in cleversoft.
• Afinum on the sale of a majority stake in LIFTKET Group to Ardian.
• Ardian on the acquisition of stake in mimacom Flowable Group.
• Sartorius on the acquisition of Polyplus for approximately 2.4B Euros.
• Altor on the acquisition of a majority shareholding in VTU Group GmbH.
• Sartorius on the agreement of a strategic partnership and capital investment with BICO.
• DBAG Fund VII on the sale of Cloudflight Group to Partners Group.
• Sartorius on the acquisition of Albumedix.
• Management on the acquisition of CordenPharma Group by Astorg from ICIG.
• Funds advised by LEA Partners GmbH and TA Associates on the combination of Chaos Group and Cylindo ApS.
• Shareholders of LucaNet AG on a strategic partnership with Hg.
• ECM-Fund GEP V on a partnership investment in Intermate Group.
• LEA Partners on the sale of PROCAD Group to Revalize.
• H.I.G. Capital on the sale of CONET to IK Partners.
• DBAG Fund VI on the sale of Telio to Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP.
• Shareholders of Heubach Group on the partnership with SK Capital and their joint acquisition of Clariant’s Pigments Business.
• H.I.G. Capital on the sale of Infinigate Holding AG to Bridgepoint.
• EMH and its co-shareholders on the sale of a majority of shares in Native Instruments GmbH to Francisco Partners.

Recognition & Accomplishments

Current rankings in directories as JUVE, Chambers, Legal 500 and Best Lawyers recognize Michael Bernhardt as top lawyer for Private Equity.

Prior to joining Milbank, he was a partner in the Corporate/M&A practice in another leading international law firm in Frankfurt. He is admitted to the German bar and speaks German and English.