Edouard Chapellier

Édouard is widely recognised as one of the leading tax practitioners in France and heads the firm’s French tax practice.

Édouard advises corporates, private equity firms and investment banks on domestic and international tax law, especially on the tax structuring of complex cross-border corporate, banking and capital markets transactions, including Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), joint ventures and real estate acquisitions.

Édouard also has extensive experience in structuring private equity and real estate investment funds in a range of jurisdictions, including Luxembourg, Jersey and France.

Work highlights

Édouard has led tax advice on a wide range of transactions. These include advising:

• Ardian: advising the $5.25bn fundraising of its latest infrastructure secondaries fund – Ardian Secondary Fund VIII Infrastructure. The fund is the largest infrastructure secondaries platform in the world;
• Vauban Infrastructure Partners: advising the shareholder on the occasion of its entry to the share capital of Paprec group;
• Ardian and FiveT Hydrogen: advising on the setting-up of Hy24, the world’s largest clean hydrogen infrastructure investment platform;
• Webhelp: advising this leading global provider of customer experience and business solutions on the acquisition of Onelink, an innovator in digitally-enabled CX, BPO and technology services supporting tier one brands throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America;
• Group Bel: advising on its entry into exclusive talks with Lactalis to sell the Leerdammer© brand and all related rights, and on the public buy-out tender offer (offre publique de retrait) filed by Unibel on Bel and subsequent squeeze-out of Bel’s minority shareholders (retrait obligatoire);
• Suez: advising the two private-equity investors Ardian and Global Infrastructure Partners on their takeover offer for this French waste and water management company in the context of the takeover battle between Suez and Veolia.

Édouard is a member of the tax committee of France Invest, the French professional organisation for private equity, and was instrumental in helping to draft the law that introduced limited partnerships into French law. 

Édouard is also the French representative member in the tax committee of Invest Europe, and he regularly participates in a number of working groups with various French professional organisations. He has been serving as Chair of this committee since 2021.

Édouard regularly speaks at conferences on tax and funds subjects. 

Édouard studied law at the University of Paris-Sceaux and economics, accounting and tax at Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC Paris) and holds a post-graduate degree in corporate tax from the University of Paris-Dauphine.

He speaks French and English.