Suhrud Mehta and Julian Stait, Milbank London co-managing partners

Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy has made another significant London hire with the addition of highly rated high yield partner Apostolos Gkoutzinis from US rival Shearman & Sterling.

Gkoutzinis, who leads Shearman's European and Middle East capital markets practice, has been a partner at the US firm since 2011, when he was made up in an out-of-season promotion following the departure of high yield partner Ward McKimm to Kirkland & Ellis.

His practice focuses on US federal securities laws, high yield debt offerings, and debt and equity capital markets transactions, and in 2013 acted on one of the largest transactions in Greek financial history – Piraeus Bank's €8.4bn recapitalisation.

According to his Shearman profile, he has acted on "substantially all" of Greece's international initial public offerings and high yield bond offerings since 2005.

He is also a visiting professor of international capital markets regulation at the International Hellenic University, and a visiting lecturer at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London.

Milbank London co-managing partner Suhrud Mehta said: "Combining Apostolos's market-leading capital markets practice, especially in high yield offerings, with our existing leveraged finance practice will establish a best-in-class offering for our clients across loans and bonds. He has an exceptional reputation and we are thrilled that he has decided to join us.

"Apostolos will also work alongside our financial restructuring, project finance, corporate and structured finance teams to continue the further development of his capital markets practice and his market-leading Greek practice."

News of the hire comes after Milbank last week sealed a deal to take on a four-partner Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft London team led by restructuring star Yushan Ng.

Ng, who has been at Cadwalader since joining from Linklaters in 2012, is joining Milbank alongside fellow restructuring partners Jacqueline Ingram, Karen McMaster and Sinjini Saha.

Prior to that team move, Milbank last made a lateral hire in London in 2015, when the firm took on Clifford Chance London banking partner Nick Swinburne for its transportation practice.

In a statement, Shearman said: "We can confirm that Apostolos Gkoutzinis will be leaving the firm. We wish him all the best for the future."