Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer has brought Mayer Brown’s former head of European finance into its London office, building its leveraged finance offering in the City.
The firm has hired Stuart Brinkworth, who brings two decades of experience advising UK and international sponsors, bidding consortia, and lenders on cross-border transactions across a range of sectors, including financial services, technology, business services and sport.
He joins after almost eight years at Mayer Brown, where he was European head of leveraged finance until September. Before this he was London head of finance at Fried Frank, after joining from Hogan Lovells in 2015.
Kristen Roberts, HSF Kramer managing partner for finance and restructuring in the UK and EMEA, said: ‘Stuart is highly regarded for his commercial acumen, trusted client relationships and technical excellence. His arrival adds further bench strength to our leveraged finance and private capital offerings across our UK and EMEA platform, aligning with one of our strategic growth priorities. We warmly welcome Stuart to the firm.’
Brinkworth added: ‘The opportunities at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer to cross-sell between practices, such as private equity and restructuring, and across the firm’s international network, create an exciting platform for me to build out my private equity-facing practice.’
Brinkworth’s recent mandates include advising Sullivan Street Partners on the financing of its acquisition of Senior Plc’s aircraft construction business last July, and advising Vitruvian Partners on the financing of its acquisition of rail tour operator Great Rail Journeys last May.
In addition to mid-market private equity-backed leveraged buyouts, Brinkworth also advises on management buyouts and buy-ins, public bids, and matters related to distressed situations.
Brinkworth was also an early adopter of unitranche loans, a hybrid structure that combines senior and subordinated debt, as a funding source in the leveraged finance market in Europe.
His hire comes after HSF Kramer in October hired a five-lawyer banking and finance team from BonelliErede in Milan, including partner Emanuela Da Rin.
In the last year, the firm also saw a trio of departures from its London private equity practice, with its head of international private equity in London, Eleanor Shanks, departing for Morrison Foerster in November.
Shanks’ move was preceded by the departure of two PE partners, Ambarish Dash and David D’Souza, who also left HSF Kramer for Morrison Foerster last May.
The firm currently has five PE partners in London, including John Taylor, who has acted for clients including Inflexion, Three Hills Capital and Carlyle.
A Mayer Brown spokesperson confirmed Brinkworth will be leaving the firm and said, ‘He leaves with our best wishes.’
