Sidley Austin has hired a five-partner finance team from Clifford Chance across New York and Washington DC.
Lee Askenazi, who co-led Clifford Chance’s financial markets team, has joined Sidley in Manhattan alongside structured finance partner Alistair Dunlop and tax lawyer James Gourwar, while structured finance duo Robert Hagan and Rebecca O’Brien have moved over in Washington DC.
The team "deepen our capabilities across global finance and tax while creating opportunities to collaborate with our private equity, investment funds, insurance and real estate teams", said Brian Fahrney, chair of Sidley’s executive committee. “Their complementary practices and strong client relationships also position us to win new mandates across the private capital markets.”
Askenazi, Dunlop, Hagan and O’Brien bring extensive experience in structured capital markets and structured finance, working with clients across a range of securitisation and asset-backed financing transactions.
They regularly represent sponsors, issuers, investors and asset managers on complex structured products, Sidley said, including asset-backed securities, residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralised loan and fund obligations.
Meanwhile, Gouwar focuses on the tax aspects of structured finance transactions such as mortgage- and asset-backed transactions, collateralised loan and debt obligations and real estate mortgage investment conduits.
A Clifford Chance spokesperson confirmed the partners' departures.
Sidley also boosted its finance bench in January with senior hires from Clifford Chance, adding Cliff Cone and Michael Sabin, the former US heads of its funds and investment management practice, along with partner Daniel Drabkin.
The firm said that alongside the incoming team it had added eight global finance and tax partners so far this year, including Jeffrey Ross, the former head of finance at Debevoise & Plimpton, in New York in March, shortly after Leah Edelboim joined from Cadwalader Wicksersham & Taft at the helm of a 10-lawyer fund finance group.
Last week, Sidley hired two senior restructuring partners in London from Clifford Chance (CC), Philip Hertz and Melissa Coakley.
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