Proskauer Rose’s rapidly expanding City office, which hired Baker & McKenzie’s private equity rainmaker Bruno Bertrand-Delfau last week, has bolstered its finance practice with DLA Piper’s leveraged finance and banking partner Alexander Griffith.
Griffith, having been at DLA Piper since he trained, resigned from the firm on Monday morning after long being pursued by the aggressively expansive US firm. In 17 years at DLA Piper, Griffith built up a strong leveraged finance practice servicing Lloyds Banking Group, Ares Capital, RBS and HSBC. He was made partner in 2007, having spent nearly a year on secondment to Barclays during his early years as an associate.
Having also built up a strong reputation in the private equity market following the financial crisis, with a retrenching in the lending market increasing the demand for non-bank lending, Griffith’s arrival at Proskauer follows a string of recent hires.
Since securing the move of Steven Davis, who led SJ Berwin’s City corporate team before its $1bn Sino-Australian merger and started in January, Proskauer has hired Bakers’ Bertrand-Delfau, Kirkland & Ellis’ M&A partner James Howe and Simmons & Simmons’ dealmaker Matt Rees.
To aid its rapid expansion in London, Proskauer took an 18,000 sq ft lease in Heron Tower late last year to double its office space and accommodate up to 100 lawyers.
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk