A&O Shearman has bolstered its leveraged finance practice with the hire of a partner from Latham & Waktins in Paris. 

Michel Houdayer has spent the past 22 years at Latham, where he made partner in 2015. He has joined A&O Shearman's debt finance global practice group as a partner effective Monday (16 September) to strengthen its offering on the French private equity market in leveraged finance and more generally in acquisition finance, the firm said in a statement. 

"It's essential to our leading position in European leveraged finance that we maintain a French team at the forefront of the Paris market," said Nicholas Clark, co-head of debt finance at A&O Shearman. "Michel will play a key role in supporting our ambitions as we continue to build out the team in Europe. He brings an in-depth knowledge of the leveraged acquisition financing market, together with the international syndicated market in the private equity sector.”

Houdayer advises both on international and French bank debt and bond financing transactions. He has advised, acting sponsor or lender side, investment funds, large corporates, debt funds and financial institutions at all levels of the capital structure, including senior and mezzanine. 

At Latham he advised KKR and the founders of Webhelp in the financing of the company's €2.4bn sale to GBL in 2019 and more recently acted for Paris-based publishing and travel retail group Lagardère in connection with the extension of its €1.1bn RCF. He also advised TA Associates in a number of transactions, including the acquisition and later partial sale of France-based insurance broker Odealim. 

A Latham & Wakins spokesperson commented: “We thank Michel for his contributions to the firm and wish him all the best in the future."

Houdayer is the latest in a series of defections from Latham's European offices this year. Tobias Larisch, who was regional chair of the firm's corporate practice in continental Europe, moved over to Kirkland & Ellis in August to open an office in Frankfurt, just a few months after an 11-lawyer restructuring team joined Willkie Farr in Germany and capital markets partners Oliver Seiler and David Rath defected to White & Case, also in Frankfurt. 

Meantime the firm's London office, which has been hiring aggressively from the City's elite for years, saw a six-lawyer finance team led by partner Alex Martin exit for Milbank in August. Also in August a group of five sponsor-side leveraged finance partners led by Jayanthi Sadanandan – former managing partner of Latham's London office – and Sam Hamilton defected to Sidley Austin. 

Going the other way, in July the firm hired leveraged finance partners Jonathan Brownson, Joydeep Choudhuri and Prue Criddle from Cahill and just last week announced that senior tax partner Simon Skinner had joined from Travers Smith. 

Meantime Houdayer's move to A&O Shearman, which was created at the start of May through the merger of New York firm Shearman & Sterling with UK Magic Circle outfit Allen & Overy, follows it confirming early this month it will cut around 10% of its 800-strong global partnership and shutter its Johannesburg office and consulting business. 

The firm also boosted its leveraged finance offering in London in July, hiring Filippo Crosara from Barclays as a partner.