Latham & Watkins has boosted its real estate finance practice in the City, hiring Quentin Gwyer, who was executive counsel at GE Capital Real Estate. The appointment follows the hire of Jeremy Trinder from Dechert who started at the firm this week.
Trinder has 15 years’ experience advising on a range of real estate matters, representing lenders, borrowers and investors, as well as experience restructuring commercial loans. He joined the firm this week from Dechert, having spent four years at the firm and more than six years at White & Case before that.
Gwyer (pictured) moves from his in-house role at GE Capital Real Estate where he spent five years, having previously practiced as an associate at White & Case and Stephenson Harwood.
Featured in the Legal Business GC Power List 2014 Rising Stars list, Gwyer is described as ‘hard-working, perceptive, a team player, and has a good sense of humour’.
Latham London finance chair Sam Hamilton said: ‘The emergence of alternative asset managers as aggregators, acquirers and financiers of real estate assets has led to a revolution in the real estate finance market in recent years. Jeremy and Quentin possess a unique blend of experience and insight that knits well with our market-leading finance capabilities.’
Gwyer has worked on structuring debt across European markets, as well as working on real estate finance.
Latham global co-chair of real estate James Hisiger said: ‘London is a key market for us as we continue to build a premier real estate practice to meet the needs of our clients in this increasingly complex and global market.’
This week, Latham confirmed Rob Moulton had joined its London finance practice. He moves from Ashurst where he had served as head of financial services regulation. Earlier in the year Latham also hired German head of private equity Rainer Traugott from Linklaters.
Latham has seen significant expansion and globalisation over the last five years, becoming the largest law firm in the world in terms of revenue in 2015. Its 2016 financials were more subdued, with revenue up 2% to $2.61bn.
matthew.field@legalease.co.uk
