Headquarters | 919 Third Avenue New York City |
---|---|
No. of offices | 3 |
No. of attorneys | Approximately 320 |
Key people | David Efron [1] Mark Elovitz [2] Paul Roth [3] Stephen Schulte [4] William Zabel [5] |
Date founded | 1969 |
Company type | LLP |
Website | srz |
Schulte Roth & Zabel, LLP (often shortened to "SRZ") is a full service law firm with offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., and London. The number of attorneys practicing at the firm globally is approximately 320 as of 2020, [6] down from approximately 375 attorneys in 2013. [7]
The firm's practices include investment management; regulatory & compliance; securities & capital markets; bank regulatory; business reorganization; distressed investing; distressed debt & claims trading; mergers & acquisitions; employment & employee benefits; environmental; finance; individual client services; intellectual property, sourcing & technology; litigation; real estate; shareholder activism; structured products & derivatives; and tax. [8]
The firm was founded in 1969 by seven attorneys under the age of 35. William D. Zabel, Daniel S. Shapiro, and Paul N. Roth met as associates at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Roth had worked on a transaction with Stephen J. Schulte, who was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, and through Schulte, the others met Charles Goldstein, also an associate at Fried Frank. Additionally, Schulte connected the group to Thomas Baer, who was in private practice; and John G. McGoldrick, who was a partner at Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler. Burton Lehman, the eighth partner in the new firm, joined the original seven from Cleary Gottlieb shortly after they opened their doors. [9]
The firm's first name was Baer & McGoldrick. [10] In 1977, the name of the firm was changed to Schulte & McGoldrick following Baer's departure. Following McGoldrick's departure in 1981 to become counsel to then-Governor Hugh Carey, the name of the firm was changed to Schulte Roth & Zabel. [9]
The firm's London office, offering American and English law capabilities, launched in 2002. [11] The firm opened its Washington, D.C. office in 2008. [12]
Chambers Global ranked SRZ as a Band 1 law firm in Investment Funds (Hedge Funds, Global-wide). [13] Chambers USA recognized SRZ in Investment Funds (Hedge Funds, Nationwide), Capital Markets (Structured Products, Nationwide), Bankruptcy/Restructuring (New York), Corporate/M&A (New York), Real Estate (Mainly Corporate & Finance, New York) and Tax (New York). [8]
It was also named "Best Onshore Law Firm – Client Service" at the HFMWeek US Hedge Fund Services Awards [14] and its hedge fund practice was recognized for its "commercial significance" by the Hedge Fund Insight "The Hedge Fund Hot 100" list in 2013. [15]
The firm advised Albertsons LLC, Cerberus Capital Management LP and the investor group, which includes Kimco Realty Corporation, Klaff Realty LP, Lubert-Adler Partners LP, and Schottenstein Stores Corporation in the $9 billion acquisition the Safeway Inc. SRZ also advised Cerberus Capital Management LP when SUPERVALU INC. unveiled a $3.3 billion deal to sign over its five biggest store chains and a stake in its remaining business to a group of investors led by Cerberus. [16]
The firm represented the joint venture, The Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group, in developing Hudson Yards, a $15 billion project, in closing nearly $1.4 billion in equity investments and debt financing for the center's first tower on New York City's West Side. [17]
The firm secured a reorganization plan for Quigley Co. in an asbestos-related Chapter 11 case that discharged at least $5.6 billion of current and future asbestos liability. [18]
The firm represented Wayzata Investment Partners in the formation of Wayzata Opportunities Fund III, which closed with approximately $2.7 billion of committed capital. [19]
The firm represented Marlin Equity Partners in its $891 million all-cash acquisition of Tellabs and also represented Marlin Equity Partners in its acquisition of Nokia Siemens Networks' optical networks business to form Coriant. [20]
The firm secured dismissals on behalf of Tullett Prebon plc in a series of lawsuits and data cases brought by affiliates of rival inter-dealer broker BGC Partners Inc. [21]
The firm represented Cerberus Capital Management LP in its sale of Chrysler Financial to TD Bank Group for cash consideration of approximately $6.3 billion. TD Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of TD, acquired Chrysler Financial in the U.S. and Canada. [22] The deal was named the biggest deal of 2010 in The Globe and Mail's list of "Biggest Canadian Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructurings." [23]
The firm represented the estate of the late philanthropist Jeffry Picower, who was the target of various civil suits, [24] in reaching a landmark settlement with the Department of Justice and the trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC relating to claims arising out of the Madoff Ponzi scheme. The $7.2 billion settlement allowed Barbara Picower, the executor of her husband's estate, to return all monies her husband received from the Madoff Ponzi scheme and donate the vast bulk of his remaining fortunes to charity. [25]
The firm represented figures connected to the Madoff investment scandal, including J. Ezra Merkin, the financier and money manager targeted in various civil lawsuits by investors and Irving Picard, the trustee of Bernand Madoff Investment Securities LLC. [26]
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Blackstone is also active in credit, infrastructure, hedge funds, insurance, secondaries, and growth equity. As of June 2023, the company's total assets under management were approximately US$1 trillion, making it the largest alternative investment firm globally.
TD Cowen, is an American multinational investment bank and financial services division of TD Securities that operates through two business segments: a broker-dealer and an investment management division. The company's broker-dealer division offers investment banking services, equity and credit research, sales and trading, global prime brokerage, outsourced trading, global clearing and commission management services. Cowen's investment management segment offers actively managed alternative investment products. Founded in 1918, the firm is headquartered in New York and has offices worldwide. Cowen claims it is known for successfully identifying emerging industries early on, especially the emerging cannabis industry.
Man Group plc is an active investment management business listed on the London Stock Exchange. It provides investment funds in liquid and private markets for institutional and private investors. It is the world's largest publicly traded hedge fund company, reporting $161.2 billion in funds under management as of September 2023. The firm is headquartered at Riverbank House in London and employs over 1,600 people in various locations. The company was a sponsor of the Man Booker Prize from 2002 to 2019.
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is a global alternative investment firm with assets across credit, private equity, and real estate strategies. The firm is based in New York City, and run by Steve Feinberg, who co-founded Cerberus in 1992, with William L. Richter, who serves as a senior managing director. The firm has affiliate and advisory offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Perella Weinberg Partners L.P. is an American global financial services firm focused on investment banking advisory services.
Fortress Investment Group is an American investment management firm based in New York City. Fortress was founded as a private equity firm in 1998 by Wes Edens, Rob Kauffman, and Randal Nardone. When Fortress launched on the NYSE in February 2007, it was the first large private equity firm in the US to be traded publicly. In December 2017, Fortress was fully acquired by SoftBank Group, was delisted, and returned to being a privately held company. Fortress manages $44.7 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2023, on behalf of over 1,900 institutional clients and private investors worldwide across a range of credit and real estate, private equity and permanent capital investment strategies. In May 2023, Mubadala Investment Co agreed to acquire a majority stake in Fortress from Softbank for an undisclosed sum.
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American private equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of 2022, the company had $548 billion of assets under management, including $392 billion invested in credit, including mezzanine capital, hedge funds, non-performing loans, and collateralized loan obligations, $99 billion invested in private equity, and $46.2 billion invested in real assets, which includes real estate and infrastructure. The company invests money on behalf of pension funds, financial endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, as well as other institutional and individual investors.
BakerHostetler is an American law firm founded in 1916. One of the firm's founders, Newton D. Baker, was U.S. Secretary of War during World War I, and former Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
TPG Angelo Gordon is a global alternative investment manager founded in 1988 by John Angelo and Michael Gordon who together ran the arbitrage department of L.F. Rothschild in the 1980s. The firm focuses on four main investment disciplines: credit, real estate, private equity, and multi-strategy.
Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.
Man GLG is a discretionary investment manager and a wholly owned subsidiary of British alternative investment manager Man Group plc. It is a diversified and multi-strategy fund manager that operates strategies including equity long-short funds, convertible arbitrage funds, emerging market funds and long-only mutual funds. The firm is also a founding member of the Hedge Fund Standards Board and a signatory of the Principles for Responsible investment. As of 2022, Man GLG had $35.4 billion assets under management.
Jacob Ezra Merkin is an American investor, hedge fund manager and philanthropist. He had been a fund manager and capital raiser until 2008 when one of the funds in Gabriel Capital LP, his $5 billion group of hedge funds became insolvent because a large portion of its assets was invested with the convicted Ponzi scheme operator Bernard Madoff. The fallout from his investment with Madoff has been extensive. He navigated a series of lawsuits without a finding of fraud or knowledge of the scheme, but agreed to repay any fees earned from the investment in Madoff historically. He had to resign a series of positions including his role as non-executive chairman of GMAC.
Blackstone Credit, formerly known as GSO Capital Partners (GSO) is an American hedge fund and the credit investment arm of The Blackstone Group. Blackstone Credit is one of the largest credit-oriented alternative asset managers in the world and a major participant in the leveraged finance marketplace. The firm invests across a variety of credit oriented strategies and products including collateralized loan obligation vehicles investing in secured loans, hedge funds focused on special situations investments, mezzanine debt funds and private equity funds focused on rescue financing.
Fairfield Greenwich Group is an investment firm founded in 1983 in New York City. The firm had among the largest exposures to the Bernard Madoff fraud.
The Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
Participants in the Madoff investment scandal included employees of Bernard Madoff's investment firm with specific knowledge of the Ponzi scheme, a three-person accounting firm that assembled his reports, and a network of feeder funds that invested their clients' money with Madoff while collecting significant fees. Madoff avoided most direct financial scrutiny by accepting investments only through these feeder funds, while obtaining false auditing statements for his firm. The liquidation trustee of Madoff's firm has implicated managers of the feeder funds for ignoring signs of Madoff's deception.
Recovery of funds from the Madoff investment scandal has been underway since the scandal broke in December 2008. That month, recovery trustee Irving Picard received funds from the Bank of New York account where Bernard Madoff held new investments into his Ponzi scheme. As it has been concluded that no legitimate investments were made on the investors' behalf for at least the last 12 years of operation, recovery has proceeded on a "money in/money out" basis. Investors are entitled to receive no more than the nominal cash amounts that they paid in and did not subsequently withdraw, without regard to inflation, interest, opportunity cost or the false statements that Madoff provided them. Those statements combined to a total balance of approximately $64 billion, while the admitted claims amount to $19.5 billion. As of March 2023, the trustee had recovered $14.6 billion toward these claims through legal action against Madoff associates, feeder funds and beneficiaries of the scheme, and had made fourteen distributions to investors. Action by the Department of Justice has recovered an additional $4 billion.
Irving H. Picard is a partner in the law firm BakerHostetler. He is known for his recovery of funds from the Madoff investment scandal from investors, Bernie Madoff and his family, and their spouses and estates. Throughout the ordeal, Picard's law firm was paid approximately $1 billion.
Jeffry M. Picower was an American investor involved in the Madoff investment scandal. He was the largest beneficiary of Madoff's Ponzi scheme, and his widow agreed to have his estate settle the claims against it by Madoff trustee Irving Picard for $7.2 billion, the largest single forfeiture in American judicial history.
Tremont Group Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Rye, New York, is a hedge fund group with a subsidiary that advised a feeder fund to Bernard Madoff's investment advisory firm in the Madoff investment scandal. This was the second-largest feeder fund to Madoff's firm due to the group having had a long professional relationship with him as Chairman of the NASD, the precursor to FINRA, and as the largest options market maker on the NASDAQ.The firm was one of the largest hedge fund consultants and advisors globally during the seminal 1990's period and pioneered a number of ground breaking products such as the CSFB Tremont Hedge Fund Index, specialized products and venues for hedge fund investment; structured products, insurance entities, new markets and jurisdictions including the first institutional fund of hedge funds in Korea and the foundation of The Bermuda Stock exchange. Prominent board members and shareholders included; Mario Gabelli of Gabelli Asset Management, Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors and Arthur Samberg of Pequot Capital Management. Tremont was among the first investors and/or involved in the launch or restructuring of numerous legendary funds such as; S.A.C., Quantum and AQR.