Chambers Review
Provided by Chambers
Leveraged Finance: Borrowers/Sponsors: Mid-Market - UK
What the Team is Known For
The banking team at McDermott Will & Schulte has a strong private equity focus and regularly works with both sponsors and lenders. It is particularly active for direct lenders, advising them on a range of financing structures. Its experience includes term loans, revolving credit facilities and PIK facilities as part of domestic as well as highly international transactions.
Strengths
They are highly responsive, they provide thoughtful advice informed by a high volume of recent and relevant activity, and they give creative solutions to legal and structural questions.
Whenever I had a question or needed an update, they were quick to provide clear and thorough answers. There was clear and frequent communication, which gave me peace of mind during the process.
They’ve got a strong network across the private debt space, which makes them especially useful when figuring out what’s actually market.
The ability to be commercial, with a problem-solving mindset and a client-comes-first culture are differentiators that the team has been demonstrating consistently.
The depth of understanding and expertise in the team is unparalleled. They revel in the complexity associated with financing and can advise us even on the most complex aspects of transaction finance.
Work Highlights
McDermott Will & Schulte advised Blue Owl Capital and a consortium of lenders on a USD2 billion refinancing for RL Datix, a company owned by ive Arrows, TA Associates and Nordic Capital.
Notable practitioners
Chris Kandel is regarded as a go-to player in the London banking and finance market. His expertise includes complex and high-value cross-border leveraged and corporate finance matters.
He's super responsive, thorough and extremely commercial.
Chris is a legend in leveraged finance.
Chris' depth of experience, technical understanding of the subject matter and genuine love for financing makes him exceptional in his field.
He's an exceptional financing lawyer.
Chris Kandel is incredibly commercial, experienced and smart.
Aymen Mahmoud is noted for his ability to advise both borrowers and lenders on leveraged buyouts. He is experienced in transactions across sectors and jurisdictions. He is the European head of finance at McDermott Will & Schulte.
Aymen Mahmoud is an astute leader, who is fiercely intelligent and possesses an innate ability to get to the crux of the matter immediately.
I would always choose to with Aymen if I could. Hard to overstate his work quality.
Aymen combines commerciality and tactical expertise better than any other lawyer I have dealt with.
He's very technically strong, commercially aware and personable. We trust Aymen to have our best interests at heart and to deliver top quality advice.
Mark Fine has substantial experience advising both borrowers and lenders across the space, in addition to private equity clients. He is well-versed in take-private and acquisition financings, as well as refinancing matters.
He's a reliable and experienced partner that is well respected and easy to work with.
Mark was highly responsive and sophisticated, he providing exceptional advice that was clearly informed by exceptional experience.
Mark is excellent to work with.