Sidley Austin’s rapid growth in Century City continues. The office that gained real estate partner Peter Benudiz earlier this month has now lured an experienced M&A attorney from a competing global firm.
David Grinberg, who previously chaired the M&A practice at Manatt Phelps & Phillips, joins Sidley as a partner in Century City. Grinberg advises companies of various sizes and profiles in M&A and private equity transactions. His clients also include investment banks, institutional investors, and private equity funds.
In a discussion with IFLR1000, Grinberg described a strong M&A market with a lot of money on the table in the private equity and corporate worlds, ready for people to put to work.
“Do I think the market’s going to be as strong as it has been over the last 24 months? Probably not, but it’s all relative. Even if it is down somewhat from a white-hot market, that’s not too bad itself,” Grinberg commented.
If the pace of M&A subsides, Grinberg does not see a negative development, but a normal part of a cycle in which markets ebb, flow, and move back to the middle ground. Certain sectors show no sign of slowing down at all.
“In healthcare, there’s a new deal seemingly every other day. In Southern California specifically, because it is such a middle-market area, they’re not necessarily the biggest deals, but there are a lot of them. There are also a lot of upper-middle-market deals, families selling businesses after building them up 30, 40, 50 years to strategic players, or selling a majority to a private equity fund, and rolling over some of their equity. There’s a lot of that going on, so entrepreneurs get a second bite at the apple down the line,” he said.
Grinberg holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, an MBA from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.