Meitar Liquornik Geva & Leshem Brandwein is renowned among clients and lawyers for its excellent corporate practice but the firm has been focussing on building up its financial offering and its efforts have not gone unnoticed. Several of the firm's peers recommended it in banking table and after accruing the deals to support these assertions, the practice joins the third tier in banking....
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Meitar Liquornik Geva & Leshem Brandwein is renowned among clients and lawyers for its excellent corporate practice but the firm has been focussing on building up its financial offering and its efforts have not gone unnoticed. Several of the firm's peers recommended it in banking table and after accruing the deals to support these assertions, the practice joins the third tier in banking. "I've done a lot of banking work with them recently and they certainly deserve a mention," says one banking lawyer.
Value wise, the banking team's largest transaction was an $865 million refinancing for Hot-Telecommunication Systems, in which Clifford Felig advised the syndicate of lending banks. Felig also advised Cool Holdings, a subsidiary of Altice Group, on securing financing through an Israeli bank.
Banking practice head, Shaul Hayoun, has been active for a significant client, Gazit Globe, the international real estate company, on two separate deals. In August 2010 he finalised a multinational credit facility in addition to a further $250 million from an Israeli bank in April 2011.
The market perception of Meitar Liquornik Geva & Leshem Brandwein's M&A practice is consistently positive: "They are very strong," says one, while another insists "they are deserving of that ranking."
The high esteem with which the firm is regarded by competitors can be attributed to the number of impressive corporate partners it has. Two names which repeatedly arise amid discussions about the leading M&A lawyers in Israel are Dan Shamgar and Dan Geva. "I always enjoy doing work with Dan Geva and Dan Shamgar at Meitar," says one peer, while another states: "Dan Shamgar is a very strong candidate."
Geva is also singled out by one client for being professional and personable: "He is an excellent lawyer: very experienced; very business-orientated; very good soft skills as well. We're very happy with him we have known him for almost 15 years."
The firm has a solid history of representing both targets and acquirers, and this year has been no different. On the sell side, Liquornik represented Attenti Holdings, a technology manufacturer, and its shareholders when 3M acquired the company for $230 million. While Dan Shamgar acted for Wintegra which was acquired by PMC-Sierra for $300 million in November 2010. On the buy side, Geva closed a deal for Broadcom in its acquisition of Provigent for $335 million.
Meitar also boasts an established capital markets practice. One significant Israeli client said it only used the firm for its capital markets activities: "For public issues we have only used Noam Sharon and his team for the past three or four years. They are excellent." Of the firm's practice head Sharon, the client added: "[He is] fantastic, he's very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with. We have the highest regard for Mr Sharon and we certainly will continue to work with him when we need that kind of legal advice."
In a standout piece of debt work, Sharon was active for long standing client Bank Haploalim on several public offerings of subordinated notes, which closed in April 2011, valued at $3 billion. Sharon also assisted Hot Telecommunications on its debt offering of $418 million in March 2011.
One client also praised name partner Israel (Reli) Leshem, saying: "We use Reli Leshem on matters such as class actions or derivatives matters, Leshem is certainly a very good lawyer."
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