London, UK, March 3, 2008, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, one of the world’s leading international law firms, has been nominated for several IFLR Americas Awards. The winners will be announced on April 9, 2008, at IFLR’s annual awards dinner to be held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
Cadwalader has been shortlisted for Securitization Team of the Year, and a matter the firm handled for Deerfield Capital Management and IXIS Asset Management, a first-of-its-kind synthetic single-tranche asset-backed securities collateralized debt obligation transaction,
referencing both U.S. and European assets, has been tapped for Securitization Deal of the Year.
The deal is unique in that it is believed to be the first truly co-managed collateralized debt obligation, with Paris-based IXIS primarily managing the European portion of the portfolio, and Chicago-based Deerfield primarily managing the U.S. part of the assets.
The Team of the Year nod recognized Cadwalader’s work on such transactions as the Deerfield/IXIS matter; two AIG floating-rate facilities with a combined value of €1.4 billion,
invested in predominantly second-lien and mezzanine-leveraged loans; the securitizations of the record-breaking $4.4 billion loan that funded the purchase of apartment complexes Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town; Blackstone’s purchase of Hilton Hotels Corporation,
which melded a “going private” commercial mortgage-backed securities transaction with a whole-company securitization into a single transaction; the securitization of a portion of the
financing of the landmark $39 billion purchase by Blackstone of Equity Office Properties, which was the biggest takeover of a real estate company and the largest private equity deal in history;
the RBS Greenwich Capital/Goldman Sachs joint commercial mortgage-backed securities program; the largest ever student loan securitization for a group of major banks; and the wholebusiness securitization of IHOP.
Two other deals the firm worked on also received nominations from IFLR. The Capital Beltway financing has been short listed for Project Finance Deal of the Year. This project, which will add dynamically-priced high-occupancy toll lanes to the Virginia portion of the I-495 Capital Beltway
around Washington, D.C., will be funded with the largest private equity investment ever made in a greenfield toll road in the United States ($350 million), the first allocation of highway private activity bonds ($587 million) in the U.S. for a transaction to reach financial close, a deferredinterest federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan ($587 million), and Virginia Department of Transportation funding ($409 million).
Also, the acquisition of an 80-percent stake in Chrysler by an affiliate of Cerebus Capital Management LP, for which Cadwalader represented Goldman Sachs as the lead arranger in structuring, documenting, and negotiating a complex series of derivative transactions with an aggregate value of more than $90 billion, was nominated for Private Equity Deal of the Year.
Last year, Cadwalader won IFLR Americas Awards for Securitization and Structured Finance Team of the Year and Debt and Equity-Linked Deal of the Year, and the firm was nominated last month for 2008 IFLR European Awards for Securitization Team of the Year and Deal of the Year in the areas of securitization, structured products, and restructuring.
“We appreciate IFLR recognizing the outstanding work of our Capital Markets Department,” said Robert O. Link Jr., Cadwalader’s Managing Partner. “These nominations demonstrate how Cadwalader crafts innovative solutions and legal strategies for our clients, respected institutions like Goldman Sachs, Deerfield, and IXIS.”
These highly-regarded awards are based on detailed research from IFLR’s team of journalists in consultation with private practice lawyers, in-house counsel and financing specialists at investment banks around the world.
About Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, established in 1792, is one of the world’s leading international law firms, with offices in New York, London, Charlotte, Washington and Beijing.
Cadwalader serves a diverse client base, including many of the world’s top financial institutions, undertaking business in more than 50 countries in six continents. The firm offers legal expertise in antitrust, banking, business fraud, corporate finance, corporate governance, environmental, financial restructuring and reorganizations, healthcare, insurance and reinsurance, intellectual property, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, private client, private equity, real estate, regulation, securitization, structured finance, and tax. More information about Cadwalader can be found at www.cadwalader.com.
About IFLR
IFLR is a leading magazine for in-house counsel and practitioners in the financial markets,
covering the latest innovations in areas such as capital markets, banking, project finance,
corporate governance, bankruptcy, litigation, fund management, and M&A.
