Proskauer Rose has added a team of four leveraged finance partners from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft to open its 12th global office in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Ron Lovelace, who headed Cadwalader’s leveraged finance practice, has joined the 800-lawyer firm alongside Patrick Yingling, Jared Zajac and Joey Polonsky.
Between them, the team has advised on numerous large finance transactions with corporate borrowers, including representing JPMorgan as administrative agent in a $2bn revolving loan credit facility for Oncor Electric Delivery and advising Mizuho Bank as administrative agent and joint lead arranger in a $1.5bn credit facility for MidAmerican Energy Company.
The group is expected to lead the launch of Proskauer’s new office in Charlotte, the second-largest banking centre in the US after New York and home to major financial institutions like Bank of America and Truist Financial.
Proskauer said expanding to the region would help it to grow its global finance and related practices, enabling it to better serve clients in one of the fastest-moving markets in the US.
“Charlotte is a critical market for our clients and for the future of global finance,” said Tim Mungovan, chairman of Proskauer. “Ron, Patrick, Jared and Joey have extensive experience in finance and they are recognised as market leaders. Their arrival will strengthen the firm’s ability to deliver solutions across the full life cycle of finance – from origination to restructuring.”
The group practised together at King & Spalding before joining Cadwalader in early 2023. They continue a run of more than a dozen partner hires over the past year into Proskauer’s 150-lawyer global finance team across leveraged finance, private credit, structured credit and fund finance. The hires have focused on London and New York, where a trio of partners joined earlier this year from A&O Shearman alongside hires from Weil and Dechert.
A Cadwalader spokesperson commented: “Ron, Patrick, Jared and Joey were wonderful colleagues, and we have really enjoyed working with them for the past two and a half years. Launching an office is an exciting opportunity, and we wish them the very best.”
The firm has seen more than 30 partners leave so far this year, including an eight-partner finance team that defected to Orrick in the UK and US earlier this month which will also see Orrick open an office in Charlotte.
Cadwalader told GLP at the time that it “remains on track to have one of its best years in the firm’s history and we continue to be bullish on our growth strategy”.
The New York-based firm generated a record $638m in revenue in 2024, 15% up on the year before, as it benefited from the growth of private credit markets.
Going the other way, the firm has hired nine partners this year, including private wealth specialist Matthew Sperry, who the firm announced today had joined across New York and London from Katten Muchin Rosenman. In June, the firm also boosted its London leveraged finance bench with Paul Hastings partner Edward Holmes.
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