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— Movers and Shakers —
Securities broker-dealer Wedbush Morgan Securities will acquire San Francisco investment banking and institutional brokerage firm Pacific Growth Equities LLC, which focuses on the life science and technology sectors. Founded in 1991, Pacific Growth has more than 75 investment banking, sales and trading, and research professionals, most of whom will join Wedbush's capital markets group. Current leaders, chairman and founder Richard Osgood, co-CEO Thomas Dietz, and co-CEO and founder Stephen Massocca, will assume senior roles at Wedbush, reporting to Gary Wedbush, executive vice president and head of capital markets. New York-based Marathon Asset Management LP named five partners: Andrew Rabinowitz, chief operating officer; Richard Ronzetti, global investment management and head of research; Jon Halpern, head of real estate; Steve Kim, CIO of Asia; and Adam Phillips, CIO of Europe. Close Brothers Group plc enlisted John Paul McGrath as a managing director to expand its European financial services sector coverage team into the U.K. McGrath joins Close Brothers from NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. Jonathan Landers joined Milberg LLP as a partner in New York to head the firm's bankruptcy practice. Landers joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in 1986 as founding partner of its San Francisco office. Alvarez & Marsal hired 12 advisers for its new European transaction advisory group. Joining Colie Spink as co-head and managing director of the group is Adrian Balcombe, who was a private equity transaction services partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP in London. Managing director Philip Mitchell was leader of the healthcare team in the transaction services group of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in London. Consumer goods, packaging, leisure and industrial sectors due diligence expert Adam McClelland joins as a managing director from PwC. Directors Suzanne Jensen, Gavin Johnson, Martin McKay and Richard Gunn arrive from Deloitte & Touche. Directors Ben Norris and Hugh Snelson joined from PwC and Morse, respectively. Neil Graham, director, worked at Ernst & Young and Montagu Private Equity LLP. The senior associates are Henrik Rundquist from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Abishek Jain from KPMG. Canadian business law firm Bennett Jones LLP tapped Michael Kergin, former Ambassador of Canada to the U.S. from 2000 to 2005, as a senior adviser. Also joining the firm's public policy group in early 2009 is Sheridan Scott, former Commissioner of the Competition Bureau of Canada and chair of the International Competition Network. On leaving the federal government in 2005, Kergin was appointed by Premier Dalton McGuinty as special adviser on border matters. He was later named negotiator for Ontario in the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP hired Steven Stein as counsel in its corporate practice. Stein, who comes in from Reed Smith LLP, will divide his time between New York and Zurich. Before Reed Smith, he spent nearly 10 years at Geneva-based firm Budin & Partners. On Jan. 1, about 100 lawyers, including 40 partners, joined the firm from Thacher Proffitt & Wood LLP. Sonnenschein chairman Elliott Portnoy said the move dramatically enhanced its corporate and finance capabilities and doubled the size of the New York office. Hogan & Hartson LLP named eight partners: litigators Lauren Colton and Allison Schoenthal; William Intner, Christopher Melville and Eun Choi, corporate, securities and finance; Andreas Grünwald, communications; Cullen Taylor, intellectual property; and international trade attorney Jeremy Zucker. New counsel include IP lawyers Christiane Stützle and Michael Martensen; litigators Richard Kiddell, Amy Gallegos and Audrey Moog; Jörg Meissner, Keith Trammell, Anthony Chan, Victor Yu, Torrey McClary and Olesya Spandau, corporate, securities and finance; and tax attorney Piotr Augustyniak. Last month, Hogan & Hartson said Sanford Litvack rejoined the firm in New York. Litvack left the firm following his appointment to assist the Justice Department's antitrust division in its investigation of a proposed Google Inc.-Yahoo Inc. Web search agreement. |
Miami's Greenberg Traurig LLP hired restructuring attorneys Bruce Zirinsky and John Bae from New York's Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. Zirinsky joins as co-chair -- alongside Keith Shapiro of Chicago and Miami-based Mark Bloom -- and Bae joins as a senior member of the global business reorganization and bankruptcy practice.
Zirinsky (pictured right) headed the restructuring department at Cadwalader for 10 years. He was scheduled to join its management committee this year after the firm decided to remove managing partner and former chairman Robert Link (left) from the group as Cadwalader shifts its focus from securitization.
Commercial real estate partner Christopher White, co-chair of the corporate department, replaced Link as chairman in February. White (lower right) focuses on debt and equity financing.
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