Latham & Watkins has hit A&O Shearman for a real estate-focused finance trio in its London office.
The US powerhouse says it is building 'the pre-eminent global real estate practice' as it continues its run of lateral finance hires.
In a high-profile swoop on one of its fiercest City finance rivals, Latham has hired structured finance partner Lucy Oddy and real estate finance partners David Oppenheimer and David Varne from A&O Shearman, as it continues to scale its finance bench in London.
Finance firepower
Oppenheimer and Varne add further weight to Latham’s real estate finance bench, with long track records advising lenders and investors on high-value transactions across asset classes and capital structures.
Their hires follow Latham's move for private equity real estate partner Jeremy Kenley from Gibson Dunn in November and comes as competition intensifies for senior corporate real estate talent, with firms looking for lawyers who work across property, finance and private capital.
Oddy rejoins the firm after 10 years at A&O, bringing more than 20 years of experience advising financial institutions, funds, PE firms and corporates on asset-backed deals, with a strong focus on the real estate sector - particularly CMBS and RMBS. She is considered one of the market's leading securitisation lawyers.
Her hire adds more firepower to Latham's structured finance practice and comes after the firm's high-profile raid - also on A&O Shearman - last year that saw it land an 11-lawyer CLO team headed by partners Franz Ranero and James Smallwood.
Breaking down silos
Rather than treating real estate and finance as separate silos, firms are increasingly looking to build more integrated teams that can cover the full remit of a deal. Structured finance has become an important part of the real estate toolkit as sponsors rely less on traditional bank lending and more on complex capital markets and private credit solutions.
What they said
Douglas Heitner, global chair of Latham’s real estate practice, said the firm was "building the pre-eminent global real estate practice", describing Oppenheimer and Varne as "at the very top of the debt market in Europe” with a strong track record advising on innovative real estate finance deals.
Jeremiah Wagner, global co-chair of Latham’s structured finance practice, said Oddy was "an outstanding practitioner with first-class technical skills", adding that she has worked closely with Oppenheimer and Varne on "some of the largest and most complex CMBS issuances in the European market."
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