Law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel has expanded its private equity practice with the addition of James J. Moriarty and Russell J. Pinilis as partners in the firm’s New York office.
Prior to joining Kramer Levin, Moriarty and Pinilis were partners at O’Melveny & Myers.
Moriarty (pictured) represents a number of middle market private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies in a wide variety of industries and transactions, including acquisition and sale transactions, leveraged buyouts, restructurings, recapitalisations, management equity arrangements and mezzanine and growth equity financings.
Pinilis is a tax and fund formation attorney and has worked extensively with private equity investment funds, representing them in a wide variety of matters, including fund and transaction structuring, ensuring the tax efficiency of investments and portfolio company transactions and fund formation matters. In addition, he works extensively with a variety of corporations and partnerships on the tax aspects of mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, financing transactions and international tax planning.
“Russell and Jim each bring 15 years of focused transactional experience and will add an exciting dimension to Kramer Levin’s private equity practice that complements our existing representation of private equity sponsors and other participants in private equity transactions,” says Paul Pearlman, the managing partner of Kramer Levin. “As the state of the economy and private equity markets continue to evolve, their breadth of knowledge, especially in the mid-market sector, will be an invaluable asset to our firm.”
Kramer Levin’s recent private equity transactions include its representation of BlackRock in the joint venture that formed Private National Mortgage Acceptance Company; Stone Point Capital in a number of equity investments including Pierpont Securities and NXT Capital; Perella Weinberg Partners in various joint ventures and asset acquisitions; and MSD Capital in numerous debt and equity investments and restructuring transactions.
