French private equity boutique Moncey Avocats has added a trio of ex-Brown Rudnick lawyers in Paris to expand its restructuring team. 

Veteran restructuring partner Pierre-Alain Bouhénic has joined alongside counsel Thibaut Lefort and associate Louis Gibon following the closure of Brown Rudnick’s Paris office last year.

The hires mark a significant expansion of Moncey’s restructuring practice, which prior to the trio’s arrival housed partner David Malamed and two associates. 

Moncey was founded in spring 2021 by managing partner Frédéric Pinet alongside Malamed, Frédéric Bosc, Guillaume Giuliani and Marie-Victoire James as a spinout of established French boutique Desfils to capitalise on a busy mid-cap private equity market in France in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

"We are thrilled that Pierre-Alain and his team are joining us,” said Pinet. “His arrival demonstrates our twofold desire to be among the key players in transactional work on the French market and to meet our clients' needs with teams adapted to their challenges. Their concerns in relation to the reorganisation or restructuring of their companies or joint ventures are more important than ever. We can now respond to them with a team perfectly adapted and dimensioned for that.”

Bouhénic specialises in corporate turnarounds operations and restructurings, and has particular experience in preventive procedures and distressed M&A. He works with French and foreign corporate clients, including groups of companies, listed companies, mid-cap companies, investment funds and turnaround funds. 

Before moving over to Brown Rudnick in late 2018, Bouhénic spent six years at DLA Piper, which he joined when it absorbed his boutique Frieh Bouhénic. Earlier, he was a partner in the Paris office of US law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges. 

Moncey said Bouhénic’s capabilities would add ‘a new dimension’ to the restructuring work conducted by Malamed, whose practice focuses on corporate and real estate acquisition finance and financial restructuring for foreign and French investment funds, listed companies and groups under LBO. The firm also offers services in M&A, finance, tax, labour law, non-transactional corporate work and litigation and arbitration. 

His hire is ‘aligned with Moncey Avocats’ ambition to respond to the challenges of growth, reorganisation and development of its clients both in terms of transactional aspects and operational support in the long term’, the firm added. 

Moncey’s key clients include European private equity outfits 21 Capital Partners, M80 Partners and EMZ Partners, the latter of which it advised on its investment in the Faunché group.

Brown Rudnick shuttered its office in Paris last September. The Global Legal Post understands that all of the Paris partners left the firm prior to the closure except for restructuring partner David Chijner, who relocated to London. The closure left Brown Rudnick’s London office as its sole international location.