Vinson & Elkins (V&E) has hired a pair of finance lawyers from Latham & Watkins in New York to boost its structured finance and securitisation practice, with one joining as head of the firmwide group.
Loren Finegold has been named V&E's new structured finance leader after 25 years at Latham, where he was global vice chair of the structured finance practice. Joining him is Ed Comber, who has made partner on the move, having been counsel at Latham.
V&E said Finegold had "pioneered a number of new asset classes and transaction structures," including the first two midstream oil and gas securitisations closed to date, and the first-ever securitisations of hyperscale and colocation data centres and wireless tower ground leases.
Comber, who joined Latham in 2017 having earlier practised at Slaughter and May, brings experience spanning midstream and upstream oil and gas assets, GPU financings, shipping containers, triple net lease assets, rental car fleet securitisations and consumer credit card receivables. He has also pioneered music catalogue master trust securitisations.
Writing on LinkedIn, Finegold said the duo's practice at V&E would focus on energy, infrastructure – including digital infrastructure – and other esoteric asset classes.
"V&E is a compelling platform for what we want to build," Finegold said. "The firm’s deep experience and relationships across energy and infrastructure create an opportunity to bring structured finance solutions to sectors with enormous and evolving capital needs."
He added: "We see significant opportunity at the intersection of structured finance, energy and infrastructure, particularly as companies and capital providers look for new ways to finance increasingly diverse pools of assets."
V&E also boosted its New York finance bench in February with the hire of the head of Freshfields' US energy and infrastructure practice, Melissa Raciti-Knapp, who specialises in project finance and energy transactions. Last June, the firm also added finance partner Caitlin Lawrence from Baker Botts in its Houston headquarters as part of a three-partner hire that saw funds specialists Samuel Francis and Reed Schuster move over from Kirkland & Ellis.
The firm's finance practice regularly acts for banks with a significant presence in the energy industry as well as borrowers in the space, according to Chambers and Partners, handling leveraged acquisitions, structured projects and workouts. It has particular expertise in the oil and gas space, as well as in renewables and conventional power generation.
"Vinson & Elkins has built one of the most respected finance platforms in the market,” said Jim Fox, vice chair of the firm and a founding partner of the New York office. “Loren and Ed are leaders who can accelerate what we’ve already built, with deep knowledge and a shared conviction that the most important structured finance opportunities of the next decade will be won at the intersection of capital markets and the continued build-out of energy and infrastructure.”
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