Akerman has broadened its corporate M&A and private equity practices in Chicago with the hiring of two experienced attorneys.
Paul Quinn and Mason “Max” Drake come to Akerman as partners. Quinn, who joins the firm from Paul Hastings, advises private equity funds and their portfolio companies on leveraged acquisitions, and guides companies on employment and compensation matters. Yet another area of Quinn’s practice involves reorganization and restructurings. Drake, who was previously at Greenberg Traurig, assists clients with M&A, venture capital investments, fund formation, and structured finance deals. Like Quinn, Drake has expertise in employment and compensation-related issues.
In a discussion with IFLR1000, Quinn reflected on a few of the advantages of practicing law at a firm with a middle-market character.
"My clients tend to be very much in the middle market and invest in all kinds of different industries. Healthcare continues to be a strong sector for private equity buyers. Clients today are pretty cost conscious, and that's a big factor in terms of determining which counsel to use. Many firms routinely increase rates every year, but we're very competitive in that sense,” he said.
Although 2016 has started off a bit slowly for lawyers in Quinn’s space, he sees a considerable number of lenders looking for opportunities to lend into deals at fairly high multiples.
"As long as financing is readily available at attractive rates, the private equity firms will be doing deals,” Quinn commented. "I do hear that there are more oil and gas restructuring deals starting to pop up due to the low price of oil,” he added.
Like Quinn, Drake’s practice has a strong middle-market orientation. Drake said that he often acts as a sort of de facto general counsel for his clients. He provides counsel on transactions as well as employment and compensation matters, and litigation strategy.
Drake said that although he did do some sales in 2015, restructurings and investment funds work accounted for more activity.
"I represent parties in the litigation finance space, parties that also do a lot of distressed debt buying. I have some international clients, not so much pure healthcare companies but some healthcare tech companies that have been growing. It's definitely an area that will continue to expand," Drake said.
"The alternative asset space continues to grow, including people who do alternative assets or look for assets to buy and fund through these investment funds,” he added.
One area where Drake has particular expertise is the sale of prized artworks and their value as a means of securing financial transactions. Drake sees strong opportunities in this area in 2016.
"There is demand out there for people who have valuable works of art, and for a variety of reasons they might want to get liquidity for those works either as a bridge to a sale, or in a case where someone has passed away and the estate needs liquidity," said Drake.
Over the years, Drake has taken part in several transactions of this nature.
"Years ago, I was on a deal where people who owned art defaulted on a loan, the loan was secured by art, and we had to go sell it at auction. This area continues to grow, I see a fair amount of that activity," he continued.