Ropes & Gray
Focused primarily on borrower-side work - particularly in light of ex-Goldman Sachs’ in-house counsel Carol Van der Vorst‘s move to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in September 2022 - Ropes & Gray LLP has deep knowledge in financings centred around both the syndicated public markets and highly structured private markets. As well as handling some work for sponsors, the team continues to regularly advise marquee clients, Altice and Liberty Global, on debt finance raising, including a considerable amount of acquisition finance due to their private equity-like instincts. The 'brilliant' Alex Robb is well-versed across a broad swathe of debt products, from unitranche to European TLB large-cap loans, and is a key member of the team that is headed by UK and New York law-qualified partner Michael Kazakevich.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- 'The integrated practice across the US and UK is excellent.'
- 'Alex Robb is a brilliant lawyer. He is fantastic technically, hard working and a clear thinker who delivers transactions under tight timelines with a commercial focus and good humour.'
- 'Ropes & Gray has a market leading leveraged finance practice . The integrated practice across the US and UK is excellent.'
- 'Good lender side practice; commercial mindset and good market knowledge'
- 'Alex Robb is a safe pair of hands.'
Key clients
- 3i
- Altice International S.à r.l.
- Altice USA
- Arsenal Capital Partners
- ASB Bank Limited
- AtlasEdge
- Avista Capital Partners
- Bain Capital Credit
- Barclays plc
- Baring PE Asia
- BNP Paribas
- Bridgepoint
- Bridgepoint Capital Limited
- CSC Holdings LLC
- Deutsche Bank
- GHO Capital Partners
- Goldman Sachs
- J.P. Morgan
- Liberty Global plc
- Livingbridge LLP
- New Altice Europe B.V. (formerly Altice Europe N.V.)
- Permira Credit
- Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB)
- TSG Consumer Partners
- UPC Holding
- Virgin Media O2
- XpFibre / XpFibre Network
Work highlights
- Advised New Altice Europe on a $912m (combined equivalent) financing in connection with acquisitions by XpFibre Holding, a joint venture of Altice France and a consortium of infrastructure investors including OMERS, Allianz and AXA.
- Advised Velocity Clinical Research, Inc. (a portfolio company of GHO Capital) on the financing (which included $500m of syndicated English law unitranche loan facilities) to facilitate its acquisition of US target Meridian Clinical Research.
- Advised Baring PE Asia in connection with the debt financing commitments for the $2.7bn acquisition of Tricor Group – a provider of integrated business, corporate and investor services – from Permira.
Lawyers
Next Generation Partners
Practice head
The lawyer(s) leading their teams.
Michael Kazakevich