Walkers Ireland LLP, the financial services law firm specialising in advising, financial institutions, private equity houses, hedge funds, and domestic and international corporations has appointed Jonathan Sheehan as managing partner of the Ireland office. He will move into the role on the 1st January 2022, taking over from Garry Ferguson, who spent nine years as managing partner at the firm. He will continue in his role as head of tax and remain client-facing.
Sheehan joined Walkers as partner and head of tax in Dublin in 2015. His practice encompasses the provision of tax and legal advice to clients on a wide range of areas including structured finance and capital markets, investment funds, financial services, corporate, banking and real estate. In addition to advising on capital markets, investment funds and real estate work, Sheehan has extensive experience advising on international tax reporting obligations, corporate migrations, cross-border mergers and loans portfolio sales and acquisitions.
“I have been with Walkers for almost seven years now and it has been an incredible experience. I have particularly enjoyed the international dimension to the firm, the entrepreneurial ethos and the excitement in an Irish context of being a challenger in a market traditionally dominated by the domestic firms,” he says. “As a tax lawyer I am fortunate to work with most practice groups and during my time in Walkers I have advised on a wide range of high profile transactions, nominated and winning deals and market firsts across capital markets, asset finance and real estate.”
Prior to joining Walkers, Sheehan was a partner in Arthur Cox, where he spent 14 years. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin and went on to do a Master of Laws at Cambridge. He is also a chartered tax advisor with the Irish Tax Institute.
I have been with Walkers for almost seven years now and it has been an incredible experience
“It is a tremendous privilege to be the next managing partner of Walkers Ireland LLP,” says Sheehan. “I will be taking over from Garry Ferguson who has been with Walkers since the day we opened in Ireland in 2010. His ambition, vision and persistence in conceiving, delivering and executing a business plan is second to none and I have learned an incredible amount from him, in addition to developing a strong friendship.”
Regarding his plans as managing partner, Sheehan says, “We are fortunate to have a very strong, stable and loyal client base in addition to a team of exceptionally talented people across our legal and professional services business both in Ireland and in our other Walkers offices.
“My plans as managing partner of Walkers Ireland will be to continue to grow our business and our client base, play to our strengths in terms of pre-eminence in financial services, and continue to attract and retain the very best talent in the market.
“Recruitment and retention in particular will be a key focus. Continuing to listen to our clients and our people, being brave to embrace new ways of working, and seeking to provide the environment for our talent to develop and to flourish in a sustainable way are key objectives of mine.”
Despite the pandemic, the company had its best financial performance in the last financial year. Sheehan says, “Unsurprisingly, the revenue growth wasn’t evenly spread. Some practice areas were naturally more acutely hit by the pandemic – aviation, in particular. Also, real estate in the early part of the pandemic.
“With our real estate practice focused on institutional and overseas investors investing in Irish real estate, the inability to conduct site visits inevitably paused deal flow. However, the resilience of all of our teams was tremendous and reduced volumes in certain areas was offset by continued growth in other core practice areas: financial services in an Irish context.”
The company is going from strength to strength
However, he believes things are already looking up. Regarding aviation’s resurgence he says, “We’ve already seen it. Restructurings are inevitable in aviation and we’ve been busy with those. We were involved in the Virgin Atlantic restructuring and participated in two large schemes: Nordic Aviation Capital, a very big transaction, Genomic Aviation, and the examinership of Norwegian Airlines.
“On the positive side of aviation, we’ve worked on award-winning joint venture projects with Pimco and GECAS and are currently working on a number of live ABS transactions. We also recently closed a new commercial aviation financing platform with Davidson Kempner.”
The company is going from strength to strength and clients include Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 companies, as well as firms and institutions across the financial markets. Sheehan says they’re anticipating growth across all key practice areas: investment funds, capital markets, asset, finance, regulatory, corporate, tax. “Those areas aren’t really impacted by the domestic economy. Our client base is very much international with a US/UK focus. We’re quite insulated from the Irish economic climate, although we have a number of domestic clients, notably institutional banks and aircraft lessors.”
[ For more information visit walkersglobal.com/IrelandOpens in new window ]