Latham Named Capital Markets Group of the Year
Firm honored by Law360 for steering landmark deals and general excellence.
Law360 named Latham & Watkins a 2020 Capital Markets Group of the year as part of their annual Practice Group of the Year awards that honor the law firms behind the major deals and litigation wins that resonated throughout the legal industry in the past year. In particular Law360 recognized Latham for representing the underwriters of Saudi Aramco's record-breaking $29.4 billion IPO, steering the debuts of tech companies like Lemonade, the artificial intelligence-powered insurance company, on public securities markets, and handling multibillion-dollar deals with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).
In Law360's feature article about Latham's significant achievements, Marc Jaffe, Global Chair of Latham's Corporate Department, highlighted that the firm's capital markets group is a "powerhouse across every type of financial product and transaction, from IPOs to investment grade debt and leveraged finance." He said Latham has emerged as the preeminent firm in the capital markets in part "because we have talent across the globe, we deeply believe in innovating and getting it right every time and because we view our relationships with our clients as not just one-off relationships but life cycle partnerships."
Underscoring Latham's deep and vast resources across practices and disciplines, Ian Schuman, Global Chair of Latham's Capital Markets Practice, added: "We can then take that relationship and service it across the globe, no matter where it wants to go, and give it all the things it needs as a public company over its entire life cycle. It has a sort of flywheel effect."
In addition to advising on Saudi Aramco and Lemonade's IPOs, Law360 highlighted Latham's role on the high-profile IPOs of online automotive retailer Vroom, software company ZoomInfo Technologies, and telemedicine and prescription drug price tracker GoodRx.
Jaffe said: "These are all disruptive, cool companies that are challenging the way business is done. Helping them find a path to capitalization is really exciting."
Also in the last year Latham was at the forefront of the active SPAC market, with Law360 noting Latham's representation of Opendoor Labs Inc., the pioneer and market leader in iBuying, in its merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II, a publicly traded SPAC, to bring public a leading digital platform for residential real estate.
Ryan Maierson, Global Chair of Latham's Public Company Representation Practice, said: "What we've found is that the combination of our number one position in IPO's and our top-tier position in mergers and acquisitions has set us up perfectly to guide clients through both ends of that process." He also added, "It's a massive undertaking to get a company public through a SPAC. Through the different disciplines that we offer, we're able to branch out accordingly and help the company with all of those work streams at the same time."