Four more partners have left Ropes & Gray’s Hong Kong office, including office head Paul Boltz. The team, which also includes Scott Jalowayski, Michael Nicklin and Brian Schwarzwalder, has moved to Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
The moves follow a number of recent departures from Ropes & Gray’s Hong Kong office. Last week, Patrick Sinclair moved to Davis Polk & Wardwell, while Andrew Bishop switched to White & Case in February, and Geoffrey Chan left for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in January.
Boltz focuses his practice on capital markets and M&A transactions. Notable recent work includes leading the Ropes team on Hutchison China MediTech’s $101 million U.S IPO last year and the $3.4 billion merger of Ctrip.com and Qunar in 2015.
M&A/PE specialist Jalowayski and debt finance expert Nicklin were in Ropes’ team on the Carlyle Group’s 37 percent acquisition of India’s Metropolis Healthcare. Meanwhile, Schwarzwalder led the Ropes team on Tesco’s $6.1 billion sale of its South Korean arm to a group led by PE firm MBK Partners in 2015.
“As one of the world’s leading private equity law firms, we remain well-positioned—both in Asia and worldwide—by the exceptional strength and depth of our private equity practice,” Ropes & Gray said in a statement. “The team includes partners across Asia—based in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul—focused on the needs of clients across the region … Our Asian PE & M&A practices include partners Daniel Yeh, Peng Yu and Jim Lidbury in Hong Kong, Tsuyoshi Imai in Tokyo, Jieni Gu in Shanghai and Jaewoo Lee in Seoul.”