Ropes & Gray Ranked Top U.S. Firm in Europe for Issuer-Side High Yield Deals by Bloomberg

Ropes & Gray earned high rankings in the recently released Bloomberg 2012 Global Legal Adviser League Tables, making it the top U.S. firm in Europe for issuer-side high yield deals. The firm ranked:

• #1 by deal count and #2 by US$ value for Euromarket High Yield (excluding Emerging Markets) Issuer Adviser; and
• #2 by deal count and #3 by US$ value for Euromarket High Yield (including Emerging Markets) Issuer Adviser.

Ropes & Gray was credited by Bloomberg with 19 deals with a value of US$5.97 billion for 2012.

After only three years in London, Ropes & Gray has established itself as a leader in European high yield financings, handling high-profile transactions for clients that include Liberty Global, Unitymedia, Bormioli Rocco, UPC, Telenet, Sankaty Advisors and GoldenTree Asset Management. The London office also recently represented Altice in a transaction involving the first Israeli credit to access the international high yield market.

“We are absolutely delighted with the recently announced Bloomberg league table rankings. Achieving these results in just over three years is a resounding endorsement of the strength of our lawyers and the faith our clients place in our team,” said Jane Rogers, high yield partner in London.

London high yield partner Jonathan Bloom added: “After a busy start to the year, mid Q1 to end Q2 saw high yield supply stall, largely due to the Euro sovereign debt crisis. Despite this, the market rebounded, and according to Fitch Ratings, European high yield bond issuance hit a record €60.3 billion in 2012, up 47 percent over last year. A continued lack of liquidity in the bank market and the limited access to CLO debt have continued to make high yield the only legitimate alternative to equity when financing acquisitions and refinancing existing debt.”

“We’ve continued to see an increase in issuances from companies outside the U.S. and Western Europe,” said London high yield partner Michael Kazakevich. “This only goes to show the acceptance of the high yield product globally.”

Ropes & Gray, a global law firm with more than 1,100 lawyers and professionals, provides clients with execution of their transactions from offices in the world’s major centers of business, finance, technology and government – London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The firm is consistently ranked highly for its practices in private equity, M&A, finance, investment management, hedge funds, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation, securities litigation and government enforcement.