April 6, 2021

Thomas Gummert will manage Eight Advisory’s new office in Hamburg and develop the infrastructure advisory business in the DACH region together with Gisela Widing and Eight Advisory’s international infrastructure team.

Eight Advisory, a leading Transactions, Restructuring, Transformation and Financial Engineering consulting firm, continues to expand internationally.

After opening offices in Paris, Lyon, Nantes, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Amsterdam, Eight Advisory continues to grow and develop its German operations.

In April, Thomas Gummert, as Director, and Gisela Widing, as Experienced Manager will join Eight Advisory’s pan European Infrastructure and Project Finance practice. They will also be able to call on the expertise of the 460 Eight Advisory professionals based at the firm’s different offices.

Thomas Gummert, will take up the role as new Director in charge of managing Eight Advisory’s new office in Hamburg and of developing the infrastructure advisory business in the DACH region. Thomas Gummert and Gisela Widing have extensive national and international infrastructure finance and M&A transaction experience with a focus on project developers, corporate and infrastructure fund clients.

More recently, Thomas Gummert was team head at one of Germany’s Big 4 for leading and executing infrastructure financing and M&A transactions across Europe, Africa and South America. Thomas Gummert started his career at Bilfinger Berger Project Investments in Wiesbaden and Sydney structuring infrastructure financings and optimizing PPP tender bids from an equity investor perspective in Europe and Australia.

Gisela Widing has been working at one of the Big 4 for over seven years. In the last years, she has focused on the (re-)structuring and financial modelling of local and international project financings. Before that, she worked within the German Export Credit Agency (ECA) in the former consortium formed by one of the Big 4 and Euler Hermes with focus on political risk insurance.

Thomas Gummert believes that “Clients expect their advisors to efficiently run the entire financing and transaction process with the help of the experts they need. This requires an in-depth understanding of the entire transaction process, which I have gained through my broad project experience from more than 50 projects with an overall investment volume of more than € 15 bn. It is key for the client to appoint advisors that have an excellent understanding of the infrastructure sector and long-lasting relationships with developers, equity, debt and bond investors. Eight Advisory focuses on financing and transaction advisory services preventing any conflicts and independence issues caused by audit and other regulated activities. Eight Advisory thus combines all advantages of an agile mid-sized organization with the skills of a leading international consulting firm: professionalism, flexibility and short distances”.

Michael Wahl, Managing Director of Eight Advisory Germany GmbH, comments: “With Thomas Gummert and Gisela Widing we were able to win another very talented team, who will further strengthen our infrastructure finance and transaction service capabilities. With our new location we will be closer to our clients in Hamburg, which will significantly improve our market coverage. I am very much looking forward working with Thomas and Gisela”.

Lionnel Gérard, Head of Eight Advisory’s Infrastructure & Project Finance practice, adds: “The recruitment of Thomas and Gisela is a key milestone in the pan-European deployment of our Infrastructure & Project Finance offer, completing our dedicated teams based in Paris and London, as to address German and international projects and transactions.”