Links, Cleary Gottlieb get fourth Wall St mandates
Cleary Gottlieb get fourth Wall St mandates" />Linklaters and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have each bagged their fourth major instruction in relation to the fall-out on Wall Street.
Linklaters and Cleary have now scored the mandates to represent Merrill Lynch and Bank of America respectively, advising them on all non-US aspects of the $50bn (£28bn) takeover which will create the world's largest financial institution.
It is understood that Linklaters' and Cleary's roles will focus heavily on obtaining worldwide regulatory consents necessary for the transaction.
As reported 15 September, the US instruction was handled by Shearman & Sterling's New York office for long-standing client Merrill Lynch with Slaughter & May’s US best friend, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz advising Bank of America.
The Linklaters team for Merrill is led by corporate partner Olivia McKendrick, assisted by finance partner Michael Kent and corporate partner Jeremy Parr.
Cleary's team is being led by partners Bob Tortoriello in New York and Shaun Goodman in London.
Linklaters is already handling the mammoth task advising Lehman Brothers' European and Asian administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, respectively (15 September). Additionally, the firm is also representing Lloyds TSB on its acquisition of HBOS (17 September).
Cleary is already acting on the New York aspects of Barclays' purchase of certain of Lehman's assets (17 September), as well as advising Hellman & Friedman on the purchase of Lehman's investment management unit (23 September), Morgan Stanley on the US Treasury's bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (8 September).
