Christoph Schalast

Professor Christoph Schalast has been a professor for Mergers & Acquisitions and European Integration at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management since September 2002.

Born in 1960, he studied law and political sciences in Giessen, Frankfurt Main and Lausanne in Switzerland. For his practical legal training, he worked for Rasor and Schiedermair (currently Linklaters LL.P.), the European Parliament as well as for the City of Frankfurt’s Property Office. Christoph Schalast attended the postgraduate study programmes of Comparative Law (Droit Compare) at the University of Strasbourg and that of European Integration at the European Institute of Saarbruecken.

After his admission to the Bar, he specialized in M&A at Albert Flad & Schlosshan (currently Mayer Brown LL.P.). In 1995, he established the law firm of Schalast & Partner focusing primarily on M&A/ Banking and Capital Market Law as well as Telecommunications Media / Technology.

Since the early 1990s, Christoph Schalast has counseled various governments in Eastern Europe. In this capacity, he was an active member on legislative commissions in Slovenia, Lithuania, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia. He currently acts as an expert advisor in German legislative projects, particularly in the areas of Banking and Finance.

In 1997, he was appointed Professor for European and Commercial Law at the University of Wismar. A few years later in 2002, he was appointed Professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management where he set up a Masters Degree program in Mergers & Acquisitions over which he is currently the Academic Director of. In addition to this, he was a lecturer in European Law at the University of Applied Sciences - Frankfurt as well as in Telecommunications Law at the University of Hamburg.

He has since established the area of research in ‘Non-Performing Loans’. Since 2006 he has been the Chair for the Annual NPL Forum and M&A Private Equity Conference. From 2008 until 2012, Christoph Schalast has consistently been nominated by ‘Unicum’ as Professor of the Year. In 2009 and 2010, he was elected by the Frankfurt School students and alumni as the Professor of Excellence. The Master and Bachelor theses over which he has acted as supervisor, have been honoured with the Leonardo M&A Award and the M&A Science Award. Christoph Schalast is the Chairman of the Milch & Zucker AG Supervisory Board, Chairman of the Bundesvereinigung Kreditankauf und Servicing e.V. Advisory Board, Co-director of the Frankfurt Institute for Private Equity and M&A (FIPEMA) as well as Chairman of the Deutsche Kreditmarkt Standards e.V. which is the German equivalent to the Loan Market Association (LMA).

He is an accomplished and distinguished attorney and notary in the areas of M&A and Banking & Finance. He has been recommended by JUVE and the Legal 500 Germany. The financial magazine, Wirstchaftswoche ranks him amongst the leading M&A attorneys in Germany. Schalast & Partner received the JUVE award for mid-sized law firms in 2007 and was shortlisted by “The Lawyer” for the European Award “Law Firm of the Year” in 2011 and 2012.