Mr Michael Kazakevich > Ropes & Gray > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Ropes & Gray LLP is known for its work on high-value and complex high yield financings for first-time and repeat issuer and underwriter clients. The London office is a key adviser to highly active issuers such as Liberty Global, as well as major investment banks, among them Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Michael Kazakevich, who is co-head of the firm’s global finance practice and co-chair of the firm’s investment banking industry group, acted for initial purchasers on Intrum AB’s  €450m offering of senior fixed rate notes. Up-and-coming partner Aditya Khanna also worked on that deal.  Key partner Robert Haak assisted VodafoneZiggo B.V. with a €2.1bn-equivalent cross-border sustainability-linked bond offering. London managing partner Jane Rogers worked with Haak on Liberty Global’s $924m debt buyback transaction.

Focused primarily on borrower-side work – particularly in light of ex-Goldman Sachs’ in-house counsel Carol Van der Vorst‘s move to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in September 2022 – Ropes & Gray LLP has deep knowledge in financings centred around both the syndicated public markets and highly structured private markets. As well as handling some work for sponsors, the team continues to regularly advise marquee clients, Altice and Liberty Global, on debt finance raising, including a considerable amount of acquisition finance due to their private equity-like instincts. The ‘brilliant’ Alex Robb is well-versed across a broad swathe of debt products, from unitranche to European TLB large-cap loans, and is a key member of the team that is headed by UK and New York law-qualified partner Michael Kazakevich.