Dr. Stephan Kock

Stephan Kock is a partner in the Real Estate Industry business unit and a member of its Real Estate Finance & Restructurings practice and its Financial Industry group.

Stephan has been running a banking practice for many years covering major asset classes such as real estate finance and leveraged lending including "new money"-financings and "reorganization/restructuring"-transactions. He advises on all layers of debt, senior, mezzanine or other junior loans or notes; structuring, syndication and tranching of participations as well as intercreditor agreements. Stephan regularly represents a wide range of international and domestic lenders such as credit institutions, debt funds, insurance companies and investors/borrowers such as funds, family offices, and insurance companies in all banking related aspects. His advice covers acquisition and development financings including residential, commercial, single assets, portfolio, and warehouse financings as well as loan-on-loan transactions. Stephan has special expertise in Pfandbrief compliant lending along with the relevant regulatory law.

Stephan is involved in Goodwin’s PropTech Initiative, which is focused on supporting the intersection of Real Estate and Technology through thoughtful collaboration across the two practice areas. As a participant, Stephan stays up to date on relevant market trends, specifically in the German market, that are impacting the PropTech sector to effectively support clients involved in this space. Stephan also helps to drive Goodwin's PropSci Initiative in Germany, especially by advising venture investors as regards their laboratory operations or occupations of lab-space.

Stephan has the full range of loan restructuring experience. He has helped clients in several cycles of the global economy. This already started by advising clients during or after the global financial crisis, including NPL-transactions, disposal of loan portfolios and even supporting the controlled winding-up of credit institutions but also developed into enforcement of transaction security including (consensual or non-consensual) loan-to-own situations or loan-to-exit disposal. Recently, Stephan has advised mainly creditors on reorganization and restructuring matters helping them to establish the path for best recovery of their claims by optimal approach to forced (voluntary) disposals or structured enforcement action, often in a multilayered debt stack. Such situations often include analysis of imminent insolvency risks or nuisance value of possible insolvency action. Stephan has been teaming up many times with Private Equity Partners and Transactional Real Estate Partners to help on distressed sales or acquisitions of target assets in special situations.

Stephan is fluent in German and English and speaks common use French.

Stephan's experience includes "new money"-financings acting for lenders or borrowers as well as "restructuring"-matters, mainly acting for creditors but also for debtors on a selected basis.

Stephan was admitted as a German lawyer (Rechtsanwalt) in 1997. Prior to joining Goodwin in 2016, Stephan was a partner in the Frankfurt office of Ashurst LLP, where he led its German international finance department.

Stephan is a member of the Loan Market Association (LMA). Throughout his career he has contributed to the LMA Real Estate Finance drafting board for German related finance documents and has been a panelist at a number of real estate finance symposiums. The Business Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) has selected Stephan to be a (founding) member of their Lawyers' Working Group.

Stephan is consistently recognized as a leader in his field by preeminent, peer-reviewed publications, including JUVE, Best Lawyers,  Legal 500 EMEA (2023, 2022, 2021 and 2018), Chambers Global (2020-2022), Chambers Europe (2023, 2022, 2021 and 2017), and Who’s Who Legal: Real Estate (2017). He was named among Germany’s Best Lawyers (2023, 2022, 2017 and 2016) by the German business journal Handelsblatt for Real Estate Law, Banking and Finance Law. He was ranked by JUVE as frequently recommended. Legal 500 Europe, Middle East and Asia recommended Stephan Kock for Real Estate & Construction in its 2018 edition. Chambers Europe (2018 and 2020-2023) recognized him as leading lawyer in the field of real estate: Finance, Banking & Finance. Legal 500 EMEA named him in the Germany Real Estate Finance and Lending and Borrowing in its 2021 edition and he has featured in the Real Estate Finance “Hall of fame” in that publication in 2022 and 2023.

• “Brexit and Beyond – Goodwin Frankfurt’s Forecast for European Estate Market,” Goodwin Video, April 2017
• “Around the world in Under 5 Minutes: Views on the Global Real Estate Capital Markets,” Goodwin Insights, March 2017