Taylor Wessing has advised the German Wefox Group on its merger with DIE Maklergruppe Versicherungsmakler GmbH. KWR Karasek Wietrzyk Rechtsanwalte advised DIE Maklergruppe.
The firms will operate on the Austrian market going forward under the "wefox" brand under existing Managing Directors Rainer Vogelmann and Matthias Lindenhofer.
DIE Maklergruppe and Wefox began their cooperation in 2017, and, according to Taylor Wessing, "have since taken on a pioneering role in the further development of the digitalization for brokers. Among other things, they developed answers for broker partners to major regulatory challenges such as the new Insurance Distribution Directive. The successful cooperation now leads to a merger of Europe's leading InsurTech company and Austria's leading broker group."
According to Taylor Wessing, "currently, Wefox has 176 partner companies with around 230 insurance brokers in Austria. All existing cooperation agreements and conditions remain unchanged. The Wefox Group has almost 400 employees internationally, serving more than 2,000 brokers and around 500,000 customers in nine countries. Turnover in 2019 was USD 130 million."
The Taylor Wessing team was led by Partner Philip Hoflehner and included Partners Michaela Petritz-Klar and Brigitte Sammer and Senior Associate Philipp Samonigg.
The KWR team was led by Partners Jorg Zehetner and Attorney Thomas Haberer.
