The Legal 500

A&L Goodbody, one of Dublin’s largest capital markets teams, mixes issuer and underwriter work. Team head Ciaran Rogers ‘combines excellent technical abilities with a sophisticated appreciation of commercial drivers’. The team gave Irish law advice to a consortium of banks including Credit Suisse, UBS and CitiGroup on Bank of Ireland’s €5.2bn capital raising.

Arthur Cox’s practice head Cormac Kissane ‘reflects the commercial sensitivities of the issue at hand’ and ‘always provides a practical solution’. On the debt side, the team advised BNY Mellon and TRS Asset Custodian on €40bn repackaging programmes set up by KBC Bank. Highlights on the equity side include acting for Bank of Ireland on its €5.2bn recapitalisation. Colm Duggan is hugely experienced.

Matheson Ormsby Prentice has one of Dublin’s leading debt capital markets practices. The team advised Willis Group on its redomiciliation to Ireland through a scheme of arrangement and $900m issuance of various senior notes. Team head Turlough Galvin and Patrick Molloy are highly recommended.

McCann FitzGerald’s equity practice had a hugely successful year in 2011, and acted on nine deals involving companies on the official list of the Irish Stock Exchange, including work for Davy and advising on Aminex’s £26m placement and open offer. On the debt side, Fergus Gillen has been acting for Dante Programme on the restructuring of its issuance programme that so far has made 16 separate note issuances with an aggregate value of around €700m. Barry Devereux is one of the country’s leading capital markets lawyers, and David Byers is ‘second to none’.

William Fry provides ‘a first-class service’, ‘client commitment and commercialism’. Managing partner Myra Garrett is ‘highly accomplished’, and Owen O’Connell, Shane O’Donnell and Orla Brennan are also recommended. Highlights included acting on deals for Davy, as well as for Deutsche Bank as sponsors of Irish Life & Permanent Group Holdings on its €3.8bn recapitalisation by state investment and the proposed sale or IPO of the Irish Life business. The team handled debt work for Smurfitt Kappa and Northern Foods.

Dillon Eustace boasts an impressively broad debt and equity practice. Conor Houlihan leads on the debt side, while Mark Thorne and Paul Moloney are the key partners on equity matters. Clients include AIG and Monarch Alternative Investment, and the team led on AIG’s private placement of common stock.

Nollaig Murphy and Edward Miller lead Maples and Calder’s highly rated debt and equity teams, respectively. The firm acted for Cerasus II on the $129m take-private transaction of NASDAQ-listed Trintech Group.

Mason Hayes & Curran’s equity-focused team is praised for its ‘business acumen’ and strength in depth, and one client describes Justin McKenna as being ‘consistently one of the best lawyers in Dublin’. Paul Egan is also a key figure. The group advised on the pre-IPO private placement for mining and exploration start-up Terra Energy.

Walkers has quickly established a credible presence in Dublin including a tightly focused debt capital markets team. Highlights included being sole Irish counsel for BNY Mellon’s trustee and agency activities in Ireland on 19 different transactions, and advising Natixis on a large leveraged financing of a pan-European mortgaged backed capital markets deal. Garry Ferguson is highly regarded.

ByrneWallace advises First Derivatives, which is listed on AIM and ESM, on all Irish law matters. Enda Newton heads the team.

The very well-respected Eileen Grace leads the team at Eugene F. Collins, which advised Anglo Irish Bank on its liability management exercise that covered 11 series of securities totalling €2bn in value.