Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has made an addition to its banking and capital markets (BCM) group. The firm has hired structured finance specialist Prashanth Satyadeva.
He was previously a partner in the securitization team at Clifford Chance. The new hire follows the announcement of the hiring of structured finance partner Simon Small, who was most recently at Ashurst.
Both hires demonstrate the team's growth and BLP's investment in its finance department.
Prashanth advises banks, funds, corporates and other market players on securitizations and ABS finance structures across various sectors. He has worked on different innovative structures such as the structuring of the first building society covered bond, advising on the first term rated pan European car rental securitization and working on the first rated securitization of self-storage properties in Europe without using special purpose entities.
Prashanth will join the structured finance team, led by a former Clifford Chance partner Paul Severs . The team worked on high-profile and complex deals advising issuers such as Tesco and Thames Water and financial institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Goldman Sachs. Recent notable deals in which the firm has been involved include the Tesco Gold securitizations and the Project Isobel for RBS.
In addition to the hires in the structured finance team, the firm hired asset finance expert Keith Wilson from Paul Hastings, leveraged finance expert Paul Simcock from Skadden Arps and project finance expert Andrei Baev from Allen & Overy.
"The finance team at BLP continues to grow from strength to strength. Our continued investment in recruiting leading individuals is paying dividends, with a growing reputation in the market for technical excellence and commercial awareness and the resources to handle large, complex and high profile deals," said Matthew Kellett, the managing partner of BLP’s Finance department. "Structured finance is an area in which we have a growing business and reputation and we anticipate further growth in the future. Prashanth’s securitisation and structured finance expertise adds to our bench strength and our ability to serve the needs of our clients who are looking to monetise assets and manage balance sheets through securitisations, debt fund structures and asset sales. His experience of working on highly complex and innovative transactions compliments the capabilities of our existing team, which includes partner Lucy Oddy who joined from Clifford Chance in 2010."
