Latham raids Davis Polk for structured finance hire

Latham & Watkins has raided the New York office of Davis Polk & Wardwell for a structured finance and capital markets partner.

Witold Balaban has joined Latham's New York corporate department as a partner as of today (5 June).

Kirk Davenport, global chair of Latham's corporate finance group, said Balaban's breadth of experience complemented the firm's existing credit and commodity derivatives practice.

"By adding a comprehensive equity derivatives capability, we hope to be able to offer clients a full range of derivative product expertise," Davenport added. "Witold is joining us to help build a world-class derivatives practice around the globe."

Balaban, a partner at Davis Polk since 2001, worked in the New York firm's London and Frankfurt offices between October 2001 and January 2005. He is best known for his domestic and international transactional practice involving complex financial structures such as equity derivatives, convertibles, asset-backed financings and hybrid capital transactions.

Earlier this year, Balaban was part of the Davis Polk team that advised JPMorgan Securities and UBS Securities as joint book-running managers of a $175m (£89.45m) registered offering by TTM Technologies.

A Davis Polk spokesperson said: "We wish Witold the best of luck at his new firm. While we will miss him as a colleague, we respect his decision at this stage in his career is to continue his derivatives practice on a different platform."