Dentons

Dentons has recruited Guillaume Kessler, a corporate partner at Orrick, to join its M&A and private equity practices in Paris—the latest in a swirl of personnel changes at top-tier firms building up their deal teams in France.

With the addition of Kessler, the Dentons corporate M&A team in Paris, led by partner Olivier Genevois, now numbers around 30 lawyers, Dentons said in a statement.

Kessler, a specialist in public and private M&A and private equity, had been at Orrick since 2016. He previously was managing partner of Olswang France, now CMS; a corporate partner at securities boutique Brandford Griffith & Associés; and an associate at Freshfields and Clifford Chance.

"The arrival of Guillaume will enable us to create new synergies with the banking and finance, employment and labor and tax teams in France and Europe in order to meet the ever-increasing demand from investment funds, particularly in their search for international build-up transactions for their French holding companies," Séverine Hotellier, France managing partner at Dentons, said in a statement.

Kessler advised Groupe Bertrand, a hotel and restaurant group in France, on the acquisition in 2017 of most of Groupe Flo, which owned 150 restaurants. The deal, which brought together the owners of iconic Paris restaurants like La Coupole and Brasserie Lipp, involved significant debt restructuring and asset sales at Flo.

Lawyers have told Law.com that 2020 could be a promising year for M&A in France, with impending law changes that could favor leveraged buyouts and induce some family-owned companies to go private. Infrastructure, renewable energy and technology are some of the sectors thought likely to benefit, lawyers said.

M&A partners in Paris who have changed firms since the beginning of the year include David Revcolevschi, who left Paul Hastings to join McDermott Will & Emery, and Christian Sauer, who left Franklin to joined Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner with counsel Kai Völpel and a four-lawyer team.

Jones Day has recently added Adrien Descoutures as counsel to its LBO team in Paris, bringing the total number of lawyers in the group to 20. Descoutures, a private equity specialist, previously practiced as an associate at three Global 50 firms: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Baker McKenzie.

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