Amid growing interest on the part of Japanese and Chinese companies in deals involving parties and assets in the U.S., Mayer Brown has expanded its M&A and private equity practice in New York through a lateral hire from a competitor.
L. Kevin Sheridan, who previously practiced law at Bingham McCutchen and then moved to Morgan Lewis along with hundreds of other Bingham attorneys, is now a partner at Mayer Brown’s office in Manhattan. Sheridan has devoted more than 25 years to advising financial institutions, asset managers, and corporations on M&A, joint ventures, and investments. Sectors he has worked in include asset management, agribusiness, shipping, transportation, chemicals, and the life sciences.
In a discussion with IFLR1000, Sheridan described a marked change in deal flow between Japan, and elsewhere in Asia, and the U.S. While inbound energy and commodities transactions were highly popular over the last six to seven years, both in the U.S. and globally, some Japanese trading companies today are moving into other sectors, such as business and consumer services, Sheridan noted.
“My more recent work has followed those trends, with projects for trading companies entering or expanding in those sectors. We have also observed our clients taking advantage of recent global divestiture programs by U.S.-based multinationals. A recent example was Kuraray’s 2014 acquisition of DuPont’s global glass laminating solutions/vinyls business,” he continued.
“We also see Japanese clients re-balancing portfolios. Sometimes they’re taking 100 percent-owned entities and turning them into joint ventures. We just completed a transaction where the client did that. Another transaction now pending is a divestiture of an asset that isn’t key to the firm’s current strategy. A lot of reshuffling of the deck is happening,” Sheridan added.
Another part of Sheridan’s practice involves working with people launching new investment management businesses. They may have worked at a bank, a private equity firm, or a hedge fund before deciding to start a new enterprise.
“Sometimes they left because of Dodd-Frank or the Volcker Rule, and sometimes it’s due to a shift of strategic focus,” Sheridan observed.
Sheridan holds a J.D. from the Fordham University School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Virginia.