Over €20 billion in domestic and international financing transactions completed

Growth has been under-pinned by senior hires

Dillon Eustace, a leading international law firm, announces considerable growth across its banking & finance practice in Ireland with a total value of transactions completed in the past year in excess of €20 billion.

Significant deleveraging coupled with an influx of foreign capital into Ireland have been key factors behind much of the growth in the sector. Transactional activity in the past year has seen Dillon Eustace complete, on average, at least one financing transaction (i.e. bond or loan financing) per month with a value in excess of €1.1 billion.  A growing number of these mandates have been acting on the lenders’ side.

Around half of these financing transactions (approximately €10 billion) were to fund the acquisition of Irish assets, predominantly Irish real estate or real estate-backed assets. Dillon Eustace has also handled the financing of M&A activity in the pharmaceutical sector including the Irish aspects of the loan and bond financings of the headline $8.6 billion takeover of Elan by Perrigo last year.

Additionally, the firm has seen significant growth in experience across the group with a number of key hires in the banking & finance practice over the past 18 months. These include the recent hire of Keith Robinson, a former senior legal advisor in the Banking Unit of the National Treasury Management Agency, who joined from Arthur Cox last month.

Prior to this, James Richards joined the team as Partner having spent the previous 14 years as a banking and finance partner at Travers Smith LLP. This was followed by the hire of John-Hugh Colleran, as a Senior Associate, from Rabobank (which he joined from A&L Goodbody, where he trained and practiced for a number of years).

Conor Houlihan, Partner at Dillon Eustace, said:

“We’ve seen significant growth across the practice over the last couple of years, and there is no sign of this momentum slowing. As a firm, and specifically in this practice, we’ve made some fantastic hires and are delighted to have brought in senior professionals from across the industry. We have a strong reputation as a leader in the international finance markets, and our team is constantly looking to build on this.”

Mr Houlihan added:

“Over the past twelve months we’ve managed to build on our reputation as a market leader for high-value, cross-border financing transactions while also becoming an increasingly popular choice – among lenders as well as borrowers – for domestic banking and finance work.  We have been at the forefront of the on-going deleveraging, restructuring and recapitalisation of Irish banks and, at this stage, have been involved in the acquisition and financing of more Irish real estate/loan portfolios that most (if not all) other Irish law firms.  Dillon Eustace has also acted for a number of new entrants to the Irish lending market and we anticipate further activity in the alternative/non-traditional lending space, which is a key focus and strength of ours.”

With a number of other new hires the banking & finance practice now has 15 full-time solicitors, including four partners, supported by a number of trainees and paralegals. Dillon Eustace’s prominence in this sector has also been enhanced by strategic hires in related practice areas such as commercial property, insolvency and corporate recovery.