EY and denkstatt are joining forces to become Austria's largest sustainability consulting and auditing organization, with around 120 highly specialized consultants and auditors for sustainability and climate strategy. The EY Law team, led by partner Mario Gall and attorney Isabella Ladstätter, accompanied the deal with comprehensive transaction advisory services in Austria and CEE, including structuring, regulatory compliance, competition law, and labor law. The EY Transaction Team, led by partner Robert Hufnagel and Andreas Sauer, Manuel Mangelberger, Rene Quin, Alwin Saraswat, Bianca Czigler-Reisner, Christian Müllner, and Renweljeet Saran, provided comprehensive support in the areas of valuation, structuring, tax and financial due diligence in Austria and the CEE countries.


Effective immediately, the denkstatt group is now part of the EY network – both in Austria and in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. With a total of 170 employees, the denkstatt group will henceforth operate in the market under the EY denkstatt brand. Complemented by existing experts with a focus on sustainability from other service areas of EY, such as tax, strategy, technology, and legal consulting in cooperation with EY Law – Pelzmann Gall Größ Attorneys at Law, companies will be holistically accompanied on their path to sustainability.


With combined forces, EY and EY denkstatt offer a comprehensive service package in the highly dynamic and complex consulting field of sustainability – from the sustainable alignment of business models to technical and scientific expertise to legal and regulatory issues or even "Green Taxes" and beyond. The teams are multidisciplinary and are specifically composed according to customer requirements – from classic management consultants, tax advisors, and auditors to experts in ESG reporting, sustainability regulation, EHS management, life cycle assessment and footprinting, circular economy, or ESG software to comprehensive legal advice through EY Law as well as technical engineers, data scientists, and architects. Thus, companies can be supported in all questions. The auditing of sustainability reports also remains part of the service portfolio.

"We are pleased that we were able to play a comprehensive legal role in this significant merger of EY and denkstatt to become Austria's largest sustainability consulting and auditing organization. The deal underscores our expertise in international transaction advisory, especially in a complex regulatory environment. My team and I would like to thank everyone involved for the great collaboration across borders," said partner Mario Gall, head of M&A consulting at EY Law.


The EY Law team, led by partner Mario Gall and attorney Isabella Ladstätter, legally accompanied the international deal from Austria: attorney Clara Messner-Kreuzbauer, attorney Sonam Schima, attorney David Konrath, attorney Martin Schneider, attorney Andreas Lopatka-Sint, and attorney candidate Laura Graf. Local expertise was provided by EY Law colleagues from Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Germany. The deal team from Taylor Wessing, led by Peter Solt and Claudia Steegmüller, advised the seller.


Find out more on www.eylaw.at