On the road again

Nearly two decades ago, Anthony Perricone spent two years heading corporate development for shipping, oil and banking magnate Bruce Rappaport, based in Switzerland.

Rappaport's "office was along Lake Geneva, and my apartment looked out on the lake and the Alps," recalls Perricone, 49. "There has been many a time when I kicked myself for giving it up."

Now Perricone is returning to the international stage, if not to Switzerland. Last month he joined Jones Day's funds practice as a partner in New York, after nearly two years at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP. He says he was attracted to Jones Day's global network of offices: Sonnenschein's international operations are limited to "a few people in Brussels and Zurich." Says Perricone, "As I observed my client base shifting to become more international, I needed a firm with more international capability."

At Sonnenschein, Perricone concentrated on fund formation, organizational structuring and regulatory compliance for hedge funds, private equity and real estate funds. At Jones Day, he hopes to use the firm's international capabilities to push into infrastructure funds, which invest in government projects ranging from middle-class housing initiatives to the development and improvement of bridges and roads. He is already working with a new client focusing on airport construction in Eastern Europe, he says.

A 1982 graduate of Drexel University, Perricone worked at Deloitte & Touche USA LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP before his stint at Rappaport's International Maritime Services Co. Ltd. He then enrolled in George Washington University Law School and began his legal career at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. He worked at King & Spalding LLP and Dechert LLP before Sonnenschein.

Perricone is looking forward to infrastructure opportunities abroad and at home, thanks to President Barack Obama's proposed stimulus package. But he also expects to keep busy advising hedge funds on restructurings, litigation, workouts and, of course, regulation.

"There will be demand for more transparency and more disclosure," he says.