For us, auditing is more than just the legally required audit of financial statements based on a risk-based analysis of critical areas.

The deployment of experienced employees with relevant industry expertise and a high level of staff continuity means that we can tailor our services to your individual needs.

Our aim is to supply you with support for your business decisions and to act as a companion on your path to success.

Cordes + Partner is characterized by direct lines of communication, quick decision-making and close cooperation with our clients.

The services provided encompass:

• Audits of separate and consolidated financial statements in accordance with HGB and IFRS
• Accounting for Closed-end Funds (VermAnlG, KAGB)
• Due Diligence
• Preparation of financial statements (HGB, IFRS and US-GAAP)
• Special audits (e.g. Internal audits, Business audits, Internal Control Systems)
• Valuation Services
• Budgeting, planning and financial statements analyses
• Restructuring concepts

Experience and competence in dealing with your issues

Please contact us for further information

Germany is characterized by its highly complex and ever-changing taxation system and its high tax burden. It is our task to provide you with some freedom of movement and to help to prepare decisions that are made by reference to tax-related implications.

The range of advisory services provided by Cordes + Partner covers all forms of taxation and helps you to identify alternative solutions for issues that are subject to interpretation.

Irrespective of whether personal or corporate tax matters are involved: Taxation issues are dealt with by experienced staff with the interdisciplinary involvement of public auditors, tax advisors and lawyers.

Our services

• Tax declarations
• Advice on tax structuring
• Preparation of annual financial statements in accordance with HGB and IFRS based on accounting records that are maintained either by us or by our clients themselves
• International tax law
• Expert opinions on taxation issues
• Bookkeeping services for clients

Our legal activities on your behalf are based on personnel discussions with you in order to develop an optimal approach with respect to the issues that concern you.                                  

Cordes + Partner has long-established, practical experience in the commercial and corporate law sectors (M&A, formation and restructuring of companies, structuring of contracts etc.), tax law, property law and employment law, as well as the structuring of cross-segment contracts for commercial law purposes.

Close cooperation between the lawyers, public auditors and tax advisors who work for Cordes + Partner ensures that advice on commercial law and tax law issues is provided from one source. We will develop timely, individually specific and effective solutions that are tailored to your requirements!

The services provided encompass:

• Set-up of companies in all legal forms and support through all stages of their development
• Support for corporate transactions
• Restructuring of businesses
• Advice on corporate contracts
• Handling of all issues relating to German and international tax law
• Conduct of fiscal court proceedings
• Defence in tax law cases and support for subsequent tax declarations
• Advice on insolvency law issues
• Advice on employment law issues
• Advice on succession issues
• Execution of wills

The basis for our successful provision of transaction advisory services is a comprehensive consideration of all the relevant aspects relating to the respective business situation and the transaction involved, as well as the implementation of the related measures. In this context, the primary focus is on a business approach. We provide support and assistance in considering the commercial, tax, financial and legal components of the transaction, in order to develop specifically tailored solutions for you.

Cordes + Partner has long-established, practical experience in supporting all types of transactions, ranging from business acquisitions, through restructuring measures, right up to the raising of capital. Close cooperation between the lawyers of Cordes + Partner and their pubic auditor and tax advisor colleagues within experienced teams ensures that all relevant issues are dealt with promptly and efficiently.

For transactions ranging from business acquisitions, through restructuring and the raising of capital, from business valuations through to due diligence, from the choice of transaction targets right up to the implementation of the transactions themselves: We can uncover potential risks and, working together with you, can convert them into opportunities!

In its capacity as advisor, expert appraiser, auditor and depository, the CORDES +PARTNER Group is one of the leading public auditing firms in Germany. In addition to the provision of fund-related tax advisory and annual financial statement auditing services, from 1991 onwards we have provided services to more than 500 funds in connection with the audit of prospectuses, overall concepts and depository activities. We have also assumed responsibility for control of the allocation of funding for some 300 of these funds. Such services are provided to approximately 30 issuing houses and 5 asset management companies, including both small and newly formed companies as well as some of the leading houses in Germany.

Within the CORDES +PARTNER Group,  a team of 6 employees is constantly and exclusively involved in the performance of activities relating to prospectus audits, control of fund allocations, audits of investment performance records and depositories;  if required, further investment fund specialists deployed in the audit of financial statements can be used to supplement the team. Due to our very low staff fluctuation rate, the very specialized expertise that has been acquired by these employees over many years remains within our organization, so that we are able to ensure continuity as far as your personal contacts within our organization are concerned. In addition to this, our executive management team members - Christian Harms and Jan Bernhardt - have decades of respective experience in the investment funds sector.

Whereas our main activities in the earlier years were particularly concentrated on real estate and maritime funds, from the year 2000 onwards we expanded our areas of core competence to cover nearly all asset classes that are represented on the market, particularly those for aircraft, wind-power and solar energy facilities, private equity funds, railways, containers and shares in secondary markets.

The services that we provide for closed-end funds, or respectively for the related asset management companies and providers, vary depending on the related legislative basis:

• Closed-end AIFs pursuant to the German Capital Investment Code (KAGB)
• Depository
• Capital investments pursuant to the German Capital Investment Act (VermAnlG)
• Special audits for asset management companies and providers

The advantages we provide as a depository

• More than 20 years of experience with closed-end investment assets, thus providing only minimal disruption of operational processes within an asset management company

CORDES TREUHAND distinguishes itself as a trustee depository - especially in comparison to the classical type of depositories - particularly through the legal, taxation and business expertise relating to many different types of closed-end funds that has been gained over decades. Due to this expertise, we are able to easily find an individual and customized depository setup for every type of AIF, whist at the same time avoiding later complications, such that - from the perspective of an asset management company operating in conformity with legal requirements - the depository can operate to a large extent unnoticed in the background.

• Support for all asset classes and all sizes of funds

We have already received BaFin approval for asset classes involving real estate, private equity, wind-power, aircraft, and railway investment assets. Further asset classes, such as, for example, ships and photovoltaic facilities, could be added without any problem due to our existing extensive experience.

• Contact continuity

Due to our very low staff fluctuation rate, the very specialized expertise that has been acquired by our employees over many years remains within our organization, so that we are able to ensure continuity as far as your personal contacts within our organization are concerned.

• Successful market entry as a depository

CORDES TREUHAND GmbH was incorporated in 2012 and constitutes one of the very few KAGB compliant depositories that were active as a depository for AIFs already on offer in 2013.

Despite a weak overall market, as of 31 December 2014, CORDES TREUHAND was already acting as a depository for six AIFs (of which three were public AIFs); by 31 December 2015 this number had increased to eleven AIFs (of which seven were public AIFs) for four different asset management companies with an investment volume totalling some EUR 300 million. Thus, CORDES TREUHAND belongs to the top five depositories in Germany (Source: BVI, research carried out by Konsort GmbH in 2015).

In addition to this, as of 31 December 2015, CORDES TREUHAND performed ongoing voluntary fund control activities, which were closely linked to statutory depository requirements, for seventeen closed-end funds set up in accordance with the VermAnlG; these had a total investment volume of some EUR 350 million.

Our services as a depository

• Performance of all necessary control and authorization requirements relating to an AIF depository in accordance with the KAGB, in compliance with all relevant regulations and pronouncements issued by the BaFin.
• Provision of support - even in the conception phase - by performing, amongst other tasks, comprehensive critical reviews of the investment conditions, the articles of association of an AIF and the sales information. Such support is provided in order to exclude (right from the outset) any later problems or liability risks, particularly those that can arise, for example, from unclear wording of investment criteria (“investment restrictions”) and the cost structure included in the investment conditions.
• Performance of complete ex-ante fund allocation controls, in both the investment and the de-investment phases, through use of a blocked account, in cases where this additional security is to be offered to the investors.