Allen & Overy bolsters US leveraged finance practice

2 min read
Americas
David Bell

Allen & Overy has hired two partners in its US leveraged finance practice, as the law firm gears up for a rise in syndicated, private and direct lending as well as acquisitions and leveraged buyout activity.

The firm said Tuesday it had hired Gordon Mak and Stanimir Kostov as partners in the US leveraged finance practice in New York.

Mak and Kostov both join from White & Case, following former colleague Jake Mincemoyer who also left that firm in February to join Allen & Overy as head of US leveraged finance.

Mak was in the debt finance practice at White & Case while Kostov joins from the private credit and direct lending practice.

“In being a player in the leveraged finance market, you need experienced partners in the syndicated loan space and the private credit or direct lender space, though we are starting to see more convergence between those markets," Mincemoyer told IFR. "We also have a solid team in high-yield but that is an area I could see us investing in as we go forward.”

The law firm is expecting leveraged buyout activity to ramp up later this year, after financing activity so far in 2021 has been dominated by debt refinancing activity.

“After working through the credits that were directly impacted by Covid, it has been back to business," said Mincemoyer. "We have seen a lot of debt refinancing activity, but we have also seen new acquisition and LBO activity and I see no signs of that stopping. We have seen a ton of activity in the tech sector, but not only in tech. Markets have been shown to be pretty resilient after we all adjusted to working from home.”