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‘A critical step’: Paul Hastings takes top Milbank high yield partner as it builds leveraged finance team

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy’s high-yield finance lawyer Peter Schwartz is leaving to join Paul Hastings in London, in a bid to boost the firm’s capital markets and leveraged finance capability in Europe.

Schwartz was a partner in Milbank’s global securities team, and specialises in high-yield bonds, leveraged loans and general securities advice, including both debt and equity capital markets.

He comes highly ranked by the Legal 500 and is a significant boost to Paul Hastings’ growing City practice which recently added financial services regulatory and transactional partner Ben Regnard-Weinrabe from Hogan Lovells in June 2014, and real estate partner David Ryland from legacy firm SJ Berwin in November 2013.

Paul Hastings chair of the Leveraged Finance practice, William Schwitter, says: ‘His [Peter’s] understanding of the European high-yield product, and his relationships with investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America as well as a range of issuer clients, will be highly accretive to our global leveraged finance platform.

Schwitter added: ‘Peter’s addition is a critical step in the roll out of a fully integrated bank/bond leveraged finance team in London, covering EMEA.’

Ronan O’Sullivan, chair of the London office, added: ‘As we continue to strengthen and diversify our London offering, attracting a partner of Peter’s reputation and experience to lead our capital markets and leveraged finance practices is a great step for us. Peter will support leveraged finance transactions for our French, German and Italian offices, as well as complement our European growth markets initiative in both high-yield and equity capital markets.’

Some of the Paul Hastings key clients within the European capital markets sector include CVC, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Société Générale, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank with recent deals including representing the underwriters on Electrica’s privatisation – the largest IPO ever conducted in Romania; SEC registered IPOs of technology companies Materialise and voxeljet; and CVC Credit Partners on its London listed equity placing programme.

jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

For more on the developing finance market from Legal Business see: Back in the machine – opportunity and threats amid much-changed debt markets