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Sullivan & Cromwell planted its first Middle East flag, opening in Abu Dhabi with Latham & Watkins regional corporate chair Ahmed el-Gaili, while Cravath is set to take Weil Gotshal corporate chair Michael Aiello and five of his M&A partners. The lateral map keeps tilting to the Gulf and London: K&L Gates lifted a six-partner Asia-focused team from Pillsbury, Mayer Brown built out London capital markets, and Kirkland is scaling Brussels antitrust.
On the client side, Michael Dell’s family office is nearing a $7.7bn take-private of insurance broker The Baldwin Group, Apollo is circling Johnson & Johnson’s $20bn DePuy Synthes unit, and the Pentagon is weighing its first taxpayer-backed AI loan. Boom-era private equity funds are bracing to miss their targets even as AI-driven convertible issuance hits a record.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Cravath takes Weil corporate chair Aiello and a five-partner M&A team; Weil eyes a PE rebuild under Ramona Nee
-Gulf and London lateral race: S&C opens Abu Dhabi, K&L Gates lifts a six-partner Pillsbury team, Mayer Brown and Latham build in London
-Kirkland scales Brussels antitrust; Akerman names its first AI development director
-Michael Dell’s $7.7bn Baldwin take-private and Apollo’s $20bn DePuy Synthes talks lead a busy carve-out calendar
-Boom-era PE funds warn of missed targets as record AI convertibles reshape capital markets
-Pentagon weighs first taxpayer-backed AI loan to Fluidstack; ICG raises a $17.5bn European private-credit fund
-Bayer’s $7.25bn Roundup settlement faces a Missouri test; Arizona sues L’Oreal over hair relaxers
-August CPI at 3.4% locks in Fed-hike odds ahead of Wednesday; oil climbs on a Saudi pipeline closure
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Cravath is set to hire Weil Gotshal corporate chair Michael Aiello with five of his M&A partners; some at Weil see room for incoming executive chair Ramona Nee to build the private equity practice.
Sullivan & Cromwell opened its first Middle East office in Abu Dhabi, its 14th globally, hiring M&A partner Ahmed el-Gaili from Latham & Watkins, where he chaired the Middle East corporate department.
K&L Gates added a six-partner group from Pillsbury across California and Texas, including the leaders of its China, Korea and Taiwan practices, a cross-border bench play under global managing partner Stacy Ackermann.
Mayer Brown hired Scott Ashton (partner) and Brian Bates (senior counsel) for London capital markets, focused on cross-border debt and US private placements.
Latham & Watkins took a real estate partner (Patrick Hennessy) from Gibson Dunn in London, extending a year-long real estate build.
Proskauer welcomed fund finance partner Stewart Ross in New York, and Travers Smith recruited Baker McKenzie’s global arbitration chair Andy Moody in London.
What today's moves tell us: the top of the market is paying up for marquee M&A and building fast in the Gulf and London, where US and UK firms are fighting for the same corporate and funds talent.
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Operations and Strategy
Firms are planting flags in the Gulf, Brussels and Australia while pushing AI deeper into operations.
The offshore build-out is broad. Sullivan & Cromwell’s Abu Dhabi launch and Kirkland’s push to turn Brussels into a leading EU competition practice, aimed at Cleary Gottlieb, Freshfields and Latham, both chase deal and regulatory fee pools closer to clients. In Australia, firms are staffing private-capital benches ahead of an expected wave of sponsor deals.
On technology, Akerman named Charles Zerner as its first director of AI development, tasked with deciding which tools to buy and which to build, a sign mid-market firms are formalizing the AI procurement question elite firms like Latham answered by buying their own servers.
Practices
Corporate M&A and Private Equity
Dealmakers and sponsors are leaning into take-privates and carve-outs even as older funds show strain. Family offices and PE firms are competing for scaled targets while corporates shed non-core units, which points to steady sell-side, financing, and antitrust diligence work. This is a buyer-led market that rewards sponsors and strategics who did the analytical work through the slowdown, and it lands as boom-era vintages face pressure to show returns.
Selected Press:
Michael Dell’s DFO Management and Sequence Holdings are nearing a $7.7bn take-private of insurance broker The Baldwin Group at $32.50 a share, a ~90% premium, after outbidding large PE firms.
Apollo is in talks to buy Johnson & Johnson’s orthopedics unit DePuy Synthes at a $20bn valuation, one of the year’s larger carve-outs.
Francisco Partners and KKR agreed to take a combined 15% stake in Italian HR-software group TeamSystem from Hellman & Friedman at a $10-12bn valuation.
CVC faces shareholder pushback on its $12.5bn LBO of Italian pharma group Recordati on valuation, while it nears a $700-800m deal for Ginko International’s China business from EQT.
Colgate-Palmolive is exploring a ~$1bn sale of mass-market brands including Softsoap and Irish Spring; GE HealthCare is in talks to buy radiopharma maker Sofie Biosciences for ~$1bn.
Boom-era PE funds from 2019-21 will miss return targets, executives warned at IPEM Paris, with expected IRRs near 7-8% versus high-teens goals and distributions stuck below 15% of NAV.
Capital Markets and AI Finance
The AI build-out is now the dominant force in capital formation, pulling record volumes through convertibles, private credit and even government balance sheets. Bankers and general counsel are structuring around single-name concentration, which sustains securities, structured-finance and project-finance mandates.
Selected Press:
US convertible-bond issuance hit a record ~$131bn this year, with AI-related issuers about 44% of volume and low or zero coupons cutting borrowing costs.
The Pentagon is in talks to lend $5bn to AI cloud startup Fluidstack, the first AI debt deal to use taxpayer money.
Nvidia is weighing a $10bn investment in Anthropic’s $100bn IPO; OpenAI said it will not IPO this year, and Larry Ellison canceled a plan to sell $7.5bn of Oracle stock.
India rejected Tata Sons’ bid to stay private, setting up a holding-company IPO that could unlock more than $180bn.
ICG is seeking $17.5bn for a sixth European private-credit fund; Thoma Bravo is making lender concessions to refinance cybersecurity firm Sophos.
Litigation and Product Liability
Mass-tort and product-liability exposure is converting into settlement and defense mandates, with state attorneys general and plaintiffs’ firms pressing on multiple fronts. General counsel are watching how courts weigh finality against claimant rights after a friendlier Supreme Court ruling.
Selected Press:
Bayer faces a key Missouri hearing on its proposed $7.25bn Roundup settlement covering roughly 65,000 US claims, following a Supreme Court ruling in Monsanto’s favor.
Arizona became the first state to sue L’Oreal over alleged concealment of cancer risks in hair-relaxer products, on top of thousands of private suits.
Tylenol’s maker and pharmacy chains asked the 2nd Circuit to revisit a decision reviving more than 500 autism suits.
Keller Postman asked a court to squash a Skadden client’s legal threat in a privacy fight that has drawn nearly 2,000 claims.
Regulatory and AI Governance
The AI-safety debate moved from labs to Washington, splitting industry from the administration and setting up new compliance work. Boards and AI developers are weighing how far self-imposed guardrails and pending legislation will reshape product and disclosure obligations.
Selected Press:
Dario Amodei’s call to slow frontier-AI development, endorsed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, drew pushback from Trump and Treasury’s Scott Bessent, who argue the US cannot pause against China.
US Senate negotiators are considering requiring AI firms to mitigate known major risks, as House leaders float a single industry meeting before any bill.
The D.C. Circuit threw out a Department of Energy order forcing a Michigan coal plant to stay open, finding the agency exceeded its emergency authority.
Where the Work Sits
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With inflation at 3.4% and the 10-year testing 5%, issuance calendars compress and work concentrates in capital markets and acquisition finance. In past cycles, a higher-for-longer backdrop has turned ordinary refinancings into liability-management exercises, and today’s move toward 5% points the same way, feeding restructuring and creditor-rights teams.
Private credit and funds keep absorbing the strain and the growth. ICG’s $17.5bn European raise, Thoma Bravo’s Sophos concessions, and warnings that 2019-21 vintages will miss targets point to fund-formation, direct-lending, secondaries, and workout mandates for the teams with real structuring depth.
Record convertibles, the Pentagon’s Fluidstack loan, and a possible Nvidia stake in Anthropic generate securities and project-finance work, while the Washington safety fight and state energy rulings add AI-governance and compliance mandates.
Deal execution favors carve-outs and take-privates. Dell’s Baldwin bid, Apollo’s DePuy Synthes talks, the TeamSystem stake, and Colgate’s brand sale drive cross-border M&A, financing, and antitrust diligence, while Bayer, L’Oreal and Tylenol keep product-liability and settlement teams busy.
Global Markets
A hot inflation print and higher oil are pushing central banks toward tightening just as the AI capex wave competes for capital.
Treasurers and sponsors are weighing whether to pull financing forward before Wednesday’s Fed decision, with August CPI at 3.4% and the 10-year near 5%. Energy-exposed boards are re-running cost scenarios after a Saudi pipeline closure lifted crude, and dealmakers are reading the rate path as the key variable for issuance timing. As Apollo’s Torsten Slok frames it, capital is now competing for long-duration projects like data centers and power, which is why long rates are leading and refinancing windows are narrowing.
Selected Press:
August CPI rose 0.4% on the month and 3.4% from a year earlier, with core at 0.3%, sharply raising the odds of a 25bp Fed hike this week.
Oil pushed higher after Saudi Arabia closed a major crude pipeline following attacks; average US diesel topped $6 a gallon for the first time.
Trump said the US should have the world’s lowest rates, keeping his handpicked Fed chair Kevin Warsh on a collision course as a hike looms.
Canada is seeking $1tn from global investors for 167 projects, from pipelines to AI data centers, as PM Carney courts capital away from the US.
Stories to Watch
FOMC decision (Wednesday, Sept. 16) - markets price rising odds of a hike that would compress refinancing windows.
Bank of England (Thursday) and Bank of Japan (Friday) - back-to-back G7 decisions that could recast the global rate path.
Bayer Roundup hearing (today) - a Missouri judge weighs the $7.25bn settlement; no ruling expected from the bench.
Texas Stock Exchange primary listings begin (Sept. 16) - a new venue testing market structure and shareholder voting.
Lennar (Wednesday) and Carnival (Thursday) earnings - reads on housing and consumer demand.
UK, Canada and Japan inflation this week - inputs for three central-bank decisions and cross-border financing windows.
That’s the rundown. See you next where law meets the markets.
-The BigLaw Markets Team
*DISCLAIMER: BigLaw Markets analyzes publicly available information, filings, press releases, and news stories published by reputable media sources to deliver content that highlights demand for legal services. Certain production processes may be supported by proprietary AI tools and are subject to human editorial judgement and review.
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