January 30, 2019
Weil was recently profiled by Law360 as a 2018 nationwide Banking “Practice Group of the Year” for advising on the financing aspects of some of the biggest merger and acquisition deals of 2018.
The profile highlighted the main areas of focus for the group, including acquisition finance, private equity finance, and finance restructuring. The Firm’s representation of several financial institutions in providing $49 billion of financing to CVS Health for its acquisition of Aetna was commended. Partner Morgan Bale commented on the challenge of putting together a financing package that pleases all the parties and is done in a short amount of time. “With CVS and Aetna we had to complete syndication within two weeks and we were able to do that because the package was well tailored to the market and we understand the issues,” he explained.
Weil’s strength in advising private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies on high-profile acquisition financings is also included in the article, which notes that, from October 2017 to October 2018, Weil advised on more than 50 financings, including large-scale ones such as Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division's $560 million acquisition of Restaurant Technologies Inc.
Daniel Dokos, head of Weil’s Global Finance practice, commented on the strong finance restructuring capabilities of the group. “We have a very strong finance restructuring practice that ties into our bankruptcy practice and we have always tried to balance our practice amongst these areas,” he commented. Douglas Urquhart, Head of the Firm’s U.S. Banking & Finance practice, also commented on the finance restructuring work the group does, saying, “There is a laser focus on terms, document agreements and creditor agreements and it's a nice hedge against the other two parts of our practice.”
