Davis Polk & Wardwell has recruited a pair of partners from US rival Sidley Austin to launch a restructuring practice in London. 

The arrival of Jifree Cader and Mark Knight boosts the number of partner-level lateral hires secured by the New York firm’s London office to four. The duo previously served as co-heads of Sidley’s London restructuring group and earlier were partners at Kirkland & Ellis. 

“I’m pleased to welcome Jifree and Mark to Davis Polk to launch our European restructuring practice,” said Neil Barr, Davis Polk’s managing partner. “They have an impressive track record of successfully leading complex restructurings, and their practice complements the work of our restructuring team in the US. Europe is an increasingly important area of focus for our restructuring clients.”

Cader joined Sidley in 2016 directly from Kirkland. He advises on European insolvencies and restructurings, working with private equity firms, hedge funds, investment banks and other distressed debt and par investors, providing advice on their investment portfolios. He also has advised insolvency practitioners.

Meantime Knight joined Sidley in 2019 after a two-year stint as general counsel for private equity firm Pillarstone. His practice includes all stages of the restructuring life cycle, Davis Polk said, including investment structuring, contingency planning and strategy, negotiations, implementation, post-restructuring, optimisation of existing investments and exit.

At Sidley, the duo advised GLAS on numerous matters, including the restructuring and refinancing of Royal IHC. They also acted for Coupang on the completion of its acquisition of the business and assets of Farfetch via a pre-pack administration.

The duo will bring Davis Polk’s London partner count to 12, the Wall Street firm having started practising English law in 2012. Notably, recent months have seen US rival Paul Weiss leapfrog the office in terms of size with a headline-grabbing run of hires to launch a heavyweight English law private equity practice.

Their arrival at Davis Polk follows private equity partner Gordon Milne joining in London in August from A&O Shearman, just a few months after Luke McDougall moved over from Paul Hastings, where he had been global co-head of the finance practice. 

Barr said: “As we continue to build out our corporate practice in London, including through the exciting growth we have seen in leveraged finance and private equity already this year, adding top-tier restructuring capabilities is a natural next step.”

Sidley has made senior hires of its own in London recently, including a five-partner leveraged finance team from Latham & Watkins led by Jayanthi Sadanandan and Sam Hamilton. Sadanandan had previously been managing partner of Latham’s London office.