CHRISTIAN BRAUSE focuses on advising U.S. and non-U.S. clients on U.S. tax aspects of domestic and international mergers and acquisitions and other major domestic and international transactions, including spinoffs, corporate restructurings, de-SPAC transactions, joint ventures, debt financings, and IPOs, including SPAC IPOs. He also advises clients in respect to the structuring (and restructuring) of alternative investments and the formation of alternative investment vehicles, including private equity funds, hedge funds, and real estate funds. Christian focuses in particular on REITs (including mortgage REITs), as well as GP-stakes transactions. His clients have included, in addition to all major investment banks, Arsenal Capital, American Industrial Partners, KKR, Siris Capital, Clearlake Capital, WCAS, Thoma Bravo, TowerBrook, Wafra, and GIC, among others.
Christian has been consistently recognized by Chambers USA for his work in Nationwide REITs: Tax (Band 1; 2019–2025), as well as in New York Tax (Band 3; 2020–2025), where he was lauded as “impressive, smart and thoughtful.” Clients describe him as someone who “thinks deeply about matters and… is generous with his time” and who is “a great lawyer who is very knowledgeable in this space and very practical” (2025). He is also recommended by Legal 500 U.S. in Domestic Tax: East Coast and International Tax (2013), Investment Fund Formation and Management: Private Equity Funds, Real Estate and Construction: Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) (2015–2017, 2025), Tax: International Tax (2016–2017, 2025), and in U.S. Taxes: Non-contentious (2017). Christian was also recognized in the Tax Directors Handbook 2014.
Christian is the co-author of the Tax Management Portfolio, “Hedge Funds,” a treatise that discusses U.S. tax issues in connection with the structuring and operation of hedge funds. He is also the author of “Federal Income Tax Aspects of REITs,” which is published annually by the Practising Law Institute.
Christian was a scholar of the German Merit Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes), and he is a senior member of St. Hugh’s College of Oxford University.