Paul Weiss continues expansion of its worldwide M&A franchise with hire of deals luminary Kindler

Paul Weiss continues expansion of its worldwide M&A franchise with hire of deals luminary Kindler

The latest move is the hire of Morgan Stanley’s global chair of M&A, Rob Kindler, as a partner in New York

The article is the view from Crasner Consulting, which unpacks the strategic issues around this expansion

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Paul Weiss, part of a group of New York elite law firms, has announced another major step in its plans to dominate the global M&A market.

Paul Weiss collected just over $1.8billion in revenue in the last full calendar year. More significantly than this impressive revenue growth is the $5.725 million in profit per equity partner (PEP). Unlike many of its peers, Paul Weiss is an all equity partnership that currently has around 165 partners spread across nine offices.

Paul Weiss has always had a superb reputation as one of the true elite New York law firms. In addition to its prowess for deal making, the firm has maintained a culture like no other. A partnership that moves in unison and throws resources at some of the most monumental deals and cases in the legal industry.

The firm has used this unity and the neat strategy of institutionalising its clients to quietly entrench itself among the boardrooms of prominent corporates and private equity investors like Amazon, General Atlantic, KKR & Co., TPG Capital and many others.

Further strengthening its position as a powerhouse in the cross-border M&A market, Paul Weiss has firmly established itself by playing a crucial role in 14 significant deals involving Apollo since 2022. These transactions highlight the firm's exceptional capabilities in navigating intricate large-cap deals and handling complex company litigations. Notably, in France, Paul Weiss's distinguished legal professionals provided valuable counsel to Apollo in its €2.6 billion buy-out of Worline TTS, the leading hardware player in the payment infrastructure ecosystem.

It was a mixture of this unique culture and position in the market, but also a modest and steady ambition that allowed Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp to pull off one of the biggest lateral hires in modern law firm history when he hired Scott Barshay from Cravath in 2016.

Seven years on, Barshay, Karp, the equally formidable Angelo Bonvino and vice chair of the firm, Valerie Radwaner have pulled off something profound, by recruiting Robert Kindler, global chair of mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley.

Other powerplays from Paul Weiss:

·??????Paul Weiss leadership launched an impressive capability in San Francisco, which has not only included the recruitment of Jeremy Veit, a veteran private equity partner from Kirkland & Ellis and additions in the trial and litigation practice areas but also the extension of its existing institutional relationships with the likes of General Atlantic and other clients who are active in California; thus making the launch a move that was underpinned by client demand.

·??????Around the same time, Paul Weiss leadership managed to attract Krishna Veeraraghavan from rival elite New York firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, in a meaningful step to dominate more of the healthcare market which has been consistently one of the most active parts of the M&A landscape. When analysing if that investment paid off, you just need to look at the last six months where Veeraraghavan led a slew of life science M&A mega deals such as Amedisys Inc’s $9 billion merger with Option Care Health in early May 2023.

·??????Of equal importance but often less documented than the big office openings like the one that Paul Weiss executed in San Francisco, is the growth that the firm has achieved from attracting deals from its private equity key players. For example, the firm’s small but outstanding capability in Hong Kong has managed to win a highly coveted mandate for ‘house client’ General Atlantic in its investment in Shanghai LePure Biotech,in early 2023. A few months prior to this, Paul Weiss also added Bosco Yiu in Hong Kong to continue its regional pan Asia investment.

·??????In London, the firm has continued to win some of the more complex and innovative deals from firmwide client KKR. The office managing partner Alvaro Memrillera has rightly been named one of Europe’s “50 Most Influential Lawyers” by?Financial News?in 2022 and 2023 as he forges forward with his relationship with KKR but also works with other partners on how to move this relationship around the network and fight off stiff competition from the likes of Simpson Thacher.

Rob Kindler’s arrival:

Kindler joins Paul Weiss as chair of the M&A department. Like Barshay, Kindler previously practiced together in the M&A department at Cravath. Barshay will continue as corporate department chair at Paul Weiss.

Kindler’s career reads as you would expect having started his legal career at Cravath in 1980, becoming a partner in 1987 and then co-heading the M&A practice there. In 2000, Kindler joined JPMorgan as managing director and became global head of M&A. He then moved to Morgan Stanley in 2006. Kindler spent 17 years at Morgan Stanley and served as vice chairman, global head of M&A and a member of the management committee at various times.

Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp said in a statement that Kindler is “widely recognized as one of the most influential and respected M&A practitioners in the world.”

Ramifications of this iconic move:

Paul Weiss competes right at the top of the deal, advisory market. This is another sign that the firm has a robust strategic vision to maintain and enhance its capabilities. To succeed and provide their clients with compelling value proposition, a significant part of its strategy consists of understanding what it does best and concentrating efforts in those areas. Paul Weiss is not a firm that aspires to be all things to all clients in all jurisdictions. It is ruthlessly disciplined in focusing its strength on five market-leading practices – public M&A, private equity, litigation, white collar regulatory defense and restructuring. According to top management, Paul Weiss is investing strategically in each of these practice areas and will continue to do so.

Paul Weiss is using its pre-eminent position in New York to maintain its destination practice for high value M&A but maintaining and in some cases enhancing its regional capabilities – either organically or via lateral recruitment. For example, the firm has managed to build out its capabilities in Asia by operating a neat regional offering and by focusing on key clients from a strong base in Hong Kong.

While some perceive that a handful of departures from Hong Kong and London may alter the firms New York dominance with a global mindset, they’re completely wrong. ?Paul Weiss' impressive deal activity over the years signifies the firm’s deliberate focus on nurturing its reputation and fostering strong relationships, leading to a level of success that surpasses its rivals. The firm’s ability to institutionalise these relationships sets it apart, a rare accomplishment that many other firms can only aspire to achieve.

What next for this dominant elite law firm:

Kindler’s arrival is part of the puzzle to originate more M&A mega deals and his vast network will produce interesting opportunities for him and the outstanding team to execute from New York and around the world.

While Kindler beds in and Barshay continues his stellar run of instructions on the most talked about deals, we believe that Paul Weiss will handpick several other elite partners within the transactions area to round out its operations and capitalise on this momentum and one of the most well thought out strategies in modern legal history.

?About the author:

Nick Crasner is the Founding Partner of Crasner Consulting, a pre-eminent force in retained search and strategy consulting for international law firms.

Based in London, Crasner has a thriving practice advising US and international law firms on the strategy and execution of their growth initiatives around the world.?

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