Derivatives / structured finance practice area help

[Minitomatosalad]

Hi

I am really interested in structured finance and derivatives. I have been trying my best to understand the sector and it’s been weirdly enjoyable.
However most things I read are from finance experts / scholars and not the legal side.
It’s quite difficult finding information about what lawyers do in those transactions and how they add value specifically. Does anyone have any experience or know any books/resources to gain a bit more insight?

I see that links, A&O and CC are both strong in those practice areas but how can I find out if they do just standard CLO stuff or more bespoke structuring?
If anyone has any insight I’d really appreciate it. A US law firm perspective would also be really helpful.

Thank you in advance

 

[AlexJ]

Asda’s owners recycle proceeds of earlier deal to fund EG takeover
https://on.ft.com/3qkqTV7

Asda price: how buyers bagged a £6.8bn supermarket chain for £200mn
https://on.ft.com/3zZFpDk

There’s some pretty good examples of how a deal was structured here- obviously lawyers can’t give financial advice, but it’s their job to make this happen (Latham in this case)

Anything that needs a top law firm is likely to be a bespoke service for the most complicated maters, you simply wouldn’t expend the money otherwise.

 

[Minitomatosalad]

Asda’s owners recycle proceeds of earlier deal to fund EG takeover
https://on.ft.com/3qkqTV7

Asda price: how buyers bagged a £6.8bn supermarket chain for £200mn
https://on.ft.com/3zZFpDk

There’s some pretty good examples of how a deal was structured here- obviously lawyers can’t give financial advice, but it’s their job to make this happen (Latham in this case)

Anything that needs a top law firm is likely to be a bespoke service for the most complicated maters, you simply wouldn’t expend the money otherwise.

Hi I thanks for this

from what I know about structuring/derivatives, not all do complex structures and mainly stick to generic ones. Big law firms often do very small / non-complex stuff, it just isn’t as advertised.The biggest (and most important) clients are usually not as price sensitive so they would absolutely spend that money. (These clients you generally wanna keep)

I saw this Reddit post by an an associate (albeit US)
‘Derivatives work is gonna really depend on your group. Some firms you'll be structuring more complicated ones. At most firms they're a support group and you'll be doing a bunch of interest rate swaps for the finance team and foreign currency swaps for the funds team. These deals sit for months and months sometimes until someone wakes up and they decide they want to trade ASAP.

Really depends on the firm what you'll be doing exactly though. If you're at a firm like Cadwalader, Dechert or Milbank in the CLO group, you'll be churning out CLOs and nothing else. If you're in the derivatives groups there, they will have more bespoke transactions to work on. If you're at a more private equity or funds focused firm like Debevoise, Weil, Paul Weiss, you'll probably do both derivatives and structured finance. And they'll have stuff besides CLOs, like more bespoke structures for PE owned insurance companies or receivables financing for portfolio companies.

Theres also the mortgage backed securities space which is similar and some firms that do CLOs also do a lot of. Others don't do any.’

So I am looking for help on how to differentiate between MC firms as the Reddit poster above did for US.

Lastly thanks for the links - I don’t have a FT sub (money is kinda tight atm). I couldn’t look at them but I googled it.
For the first link - I couldn’t find the structured finance or derivative element to this deal - it just seems to be a leveraged acquisition + partly funded by previously acquired funds? Am I getting it wrong?

I can’t find an alternative to the second article that isn’t behind a paywall

 

[AlexJ]

Ah I think you query is more specific than I thought- however giving the MC preeminence in the finance space in the UK I would imagine they still do lots of bespoke work, with the US firms doing more of the PE focused work

 

[Bakers Junior Lawyer]

I recommend the LexisNexis text on The Law and Practice of International Capital Markets by Geoffrey Fuller.