EY Law advises EFM Development on a jv in the forestry sector

EY Law advised EFM Development on the establishment of a joint venture with Raiffeisen Ventures, Falk Steiner and Aari Metsä Oy. The joint venture was entered into in order to jointly invest in Aari Forest, a company active in the forestry sector.

EY Law acted with a team led by Partner Dr. Jan Philipp Feigen (PICTURED CENTER) and Counsel Daniel Martin Schulz (PICTURED LEFT), who shared the lead and worked together with Björn Thorben Stute (Senior Consultant, PE/M&A, Hamburg); Dr. Martin Kissi (Director, Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf).

Raiffeisen Ventures was advised by lawyer Sonja Barkam (deputy head of the legal department, PICTURED RIGHT) and Mathias Lisch (project manager M&A) from Raiffeisen Waren-Zentrale Rhein-Main.

More details on the joint venture

EFM Development is an investment company that founded Aari Forest, which was subsequently prepared for a successful market entry in German-speaking countries with the help of Falk Steiner, an experienced consultant in the forestry sector and Aari Metsä Oy, a Finnish company specializing in advising forest owners and acquiring forests. Raiffeisen Waren-Zentrale Rhein-Main is one of the largest agricultural trading companies in Germany. It has invested a six-figure sum in the joint venture project via its subsidiary Raiffeisen Ventures.

Falk Steiner will act as managing director of Aari Forest in the future and has already established initial business relationships with potential customers. Aari Metsä Oy will make its naming rights and licenses available to Aari Forest and will continue to support the company with personnel in the future. EY Law drafted all contracts for future cooperation as well as the SPA in consultation with the parties. The notarization took place at the Bergstrasse notary’s office in Hamburg under the direction of notary Dr. Thomas Diehn.

Aari Forest provides services for forest owners in connection with the comprehensive management of forests in the Federal Republic of Germany and in future also in other countries such as France, Austria and the Benelux countries. The aim of Aari Forest is to successfully establish digitalization and professional forest asset management. The aim is to create a fully digital and sustainable value chain from the forest to biomass as a raw material for various industrial utilization processes.