Weil Gotshal & Manges has added a pair of private equity partners in San Francisco from Dechert and Kirkland & Ellis, as it continues to build the practice globally in spite of recent departures.
Jonathan Stott has joined from Dechert, where he was head of the firm's San Francisco office and its West Coast private equity team. Michael Hanna has moved over from Kirkland's San Francisco office, where he had worked for a decade as a corporate partner.
Their hire comes amid a period of churn in Weil's PE practice in New York, with reports emerging late last month that practice co-head Chris Machera and partner Tim Burns were defecting to Paul Weiss and partner Brian Parness was planning to join Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Weil, Paul Weiss and Simpson Thacher did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reports, which followed Weil veteran Robert Rizzo exiting in July to be global co-head of PE at McDermott Will & Schulte.
Michael Aiello, chairman of Weil’s corporate department, said the firm was focused on growing its private equity group in the US and globally, adding that Stott and Hanna were "‘go-to’ advisors for many of the world’s leading private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies."
“We've substantially expanded the scale and depth of our private equity group in recent years – with the group doubling in size during my tenure – and their arrival reflects our commitment to continuing that trajectory. They strengthen our capabilities in California and enhance our ability to serve clients across our global private equity platform," Aiello added.
Stott has advised clients including Grant Thornton, KKR and Blackstone Tactical Opportunities on M&A, carve-outs, growth investments and joint ventures. His experience spans technology, healthcare, industrials, aerospace and financial services industries.
Meanwhile Hanna's practice focuses on PE sponsors and their portfolio companies on leveraged acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, joint ventures and corporate governance.
The duo take Weil to 20 partners serving PE clients in California. The firm has focused on growing in the state in recent years, hiring Latham & Watkins partners Tana Ryan and Navneeta Rekhi to open offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2024 targetting private equity work. Since then the offices have grown to around 35 lawyers in total, alongside the roughly 50-strong Silicon Valley office the firm opened back in 1991.
“We've built one the deepest private equity benches in California,” said Kyle Krpata, co-head of Weil’s US private equity group, and Ryan, managing partner of the firm's Los Angeles office. “Jon and Michael bring deep market relationships and a collaborative and team-oriented approach to client service, which we value. They are ideal additions to our California platform, and we look forward to continuing to build on our momentum in this important market.”
Weil also boosted its London PE bench in April with the hire of secondaries partner Charles Cooper-Isow from Kirkland, and over the past year has been rapidly adding partners Germany team as it moves to build a leading pan-European private equity team. Last October it added a six-lawyer group from Latham & Watkins led by partner Sebastian Pauls and Susanne Decker and in February recruited Kamyar Abrar from Willkie Farr as co-head of the Germany PE group.
Last week, however, it lost experienced London infrastructure M&A specialist Murray Cox – a former Slaughter and May partner – to Simpson Thacher.
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