Jones Day has hired Alastair Gourlay from Baker McKenzie as a partner in its financial markets practice in Sydney.

Gourlay is a banking and finance lawyer with more than 20 years of experience representing financial institutions, investors and corporations on complex cross-border leveraged finance, corporate finance, private credit, funds finance and real estate finance deals throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Gourlay leaves Baker McKenzie after nearly five years, having made partner there. He previously worked at Magic Circle law firm Clifford Chance in Sydney, London and Brazil over two stints of nearly eight years and more than three and a half years apiece, interspersed with a shorter period of 16 months at King & Wood Mallesons in Sydney, where he requalified in New South Wales. He originally trained and qualified in the UK at legacy firm Olswang, now part of CMS.

In recent years, he has advised on an AU$1.5bn multi-currency syndicated sustainability-linked loan facility in the healthcare industry, an AU$1.7bn term loan B acquisition financing facility in the oil and gas industry, and an approximately AU$1bn take-private acquisition financing for a US-headquartered global sponsor.

“Alastair has deep experience advising clients in leveraged finance, private credit and cross-border financing deals, which are important areas in which we serve our clients worldwide,” said Alban Caillemer du Ferrage, chair of Jones Day’s financial markets practice for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Noting that Gourlay was well-known for his work on high-stakes financing transactions in healthcare, Chris Ahern, who leads the firm’s Sydney office, welcomed the arrival, adding: “We look forward to working alongside him.”

Gourlay cited the US firm’s strong Australian presence and US reach as a factor in his move, calling it “ideally placed to advise clients on the ever-increasing private capital flows between the US and Australia”.

In addition to Gourlay’s arrival, Lewis Grimm, a senior London financial markets partner will move to the firm’s Melbourne office in August. Grimm has more than two decades of leveraged and project finance experience working on marquee deals in New York, Europe and Australia.

He represents financial institutions and leveraged borrowers on cutting-edge domestic and cross-border lending and high-yield transactions, as well as high-profile restructuring, liability management and bankruptcy matters. His clients include Citizens, Jefferies, KeyBank, M&T Bank, TD Securities, US Bank and Wells Fargo.

Grimm, a fixture at Jones Day for 16 years, is admitted in New York, England and Wales, and New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Earlier in his associate career, he spent stints at Linklaters’ alliance firm Allens and New York white-shoe firm Cravath Swaine & Moore.