Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft has hired leveraged finance partner Edward Holmes from Paul Hastings in London to reinforce the firm’s cross-border financial coverage.
Holmes is a transactional specialist in high-yield bond markets and will also work across Cadwalader’s corporate and restructuring practices, both with Wall Street colleagues as well as with the firm’s City clients.
A New York and London qualified lawyer, Holmes leaves Paul Hastings after 14 years, having previously served as an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel for three years, during which time he helped develop the firm’s presence in both the sponsor and acquisition financing markets.
He advises underwriters, institutional lenders and private credit funds on large-cap and mid-cap cross-border financings, including broadly syndicated term loans (under both New York and English law), private credit facilities, subordinated instruments, bridge-to-bond structures and liability management transactions.
Cadwalader’s finance group chair Wes Misson said Holmes’s strengths would deepen the firm’s transatlantic offering and broaden its overall financing capabilities.
Pat Quinn, the firm’s managing partner, added: “Ed’s broad-based cross-border financing experience, including his significant background in high-yield bonds, will be valuable to our clients.”
His arrival adds to other recent leveraged finance hires – Smridhi Gulati, who joined from Dechert in 2023 to co-lead the leveraged team alongside Bevis Metcalfe, who joined from Baker McKenzie in 2022 along with Matthew Smith.
Holmes’s exit from Paul Hastings follows other departures from the firm’s leveraged finance team, which saw Alexander Horstmann-Caines leave for KKR in January, having been on secondment with that client since December 2023. Peter Hayes, another leveraged finance partner, left for Linklaters last month after five years at the firm.
Holmes’s exit will be offset by this week's appointment of Corey Wright and Lisa Collier in New York from Latham & Watkins, which will enhance the firm’s global finance practice, particularly in leveraged finance deals.
Cadwalader, meanwhile, saw corporate crime partner Duncan Grieve exit to join former colleague Mark Beardsworth at London boutique Signature Litigation, where they founded the firm’s new white-collar crime practice. It also lost a four partner finance team to King & Spalding in June last year.
Paul Hastings was contacted for comment.
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