Weil Gotshal & Manges has bolstered its London finance team with the hire of a former Goldman Sachs lawyer as a partner. 

Nicola Noël will join the US firm’s 250-lawyer London office in January from Canadian pension investor PSP Investments, where she established the European credit legal team. 

She brings almost 20 years of credit investments experience from both the client side and private practice and has capabilities across the capital structure, including private credit, broadly syndicated loan and bond products, junior debt products including Holdco PIK, and preferred capital instruments. 

Chris McLaughlin, co-head of Weil’s London finance practice, said Noël was “particularly known for her ability to negotiate key lender protections while maintaining strong sponsor relationships”, adding she ”was a recognised innovator on highly bespoke financing structures”.

Noël practised at Latham & Watkins for six years before joining Goldman Sachs in 2013, where she worked as executive director in the credit finance transaction execution group. Before Latham, she had a two-year stint at Scottish law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn, according to her LinkedIn bio. 

At Weil Noël will work as part of a London finance practice led by McLaughlin and Tom Richards, both noted leveraged finance lawyers who between them have acted for clients including CVC, Blackstone, Bain Capital and Permira, among others. 

Weil’s London leveraged finance practice is active on major matters for PE firms and traditional lenders and with a growing presence in the direct lending space, according to legal rankings guide Chambers. The practice is “well positioned to advise on the full range of financial instruments including US products, securing its position as a sought-after adviser in the LBO market”. 

Noël’s hire will restock Weil’s London finance bench following two partner defections to Paul Hastings as it moves to become a global market leader in finance and debt capital markets. Structured finance lawyer Brian Maher switched firms in August and leveraged finance specialist Reena Gogna moved across earlier in the year. 

Late in 2022, Paul Hastings also hit Weil’s London lender-side finance practice for partners Patrick Bright and Alex Horstmann-Caines, around the same time that leading acquisition finance partner Morgan Bale defected in New York after 24 years at Weil. 

For its part, Weil has also been boosting its US private equity ranks over the past few weeks, hiring partners Luke Laumann in New York and Alice Yuan in Los Angeles from White & Case and boutique Massumi + Consoli respectively.