Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, announced that Stephen G. Rooney has joined the firm in New York as a partner and co-leader of the Insurance Finance Group. He also is a member of the firm’s Banking & Finance practice. For more than 20 years, he was a partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf in their corporate insurance practice and served as the global chair of the firm’s Structured Finance Practice Group.
“Steve is widely recognized in the insurance industry for the breadth of his transactional experience, including securities offerings, corporate finance, structured finance and M&A, and he is particularly noted for his pioneering work in insurance-linked securities,” said Kenneth R. Pierce, co-leader of Mayer Brown’s global Insurance Industry Group.
Edward Best, leader of Mayer Brown’s Capital Markets Group, added, “We are very excited about Steve joining Mayer Brown. He will further strengthen Mayer Brown’s ability to serve our clients and will reinforce our strong position in the worldwide insurance transactional markets.”
Mr. Rooney said, “Mayer Brown’s capabilities and global reputation in insurance capital markets, M&A and finance are outstanding, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute my talents and experience to the Mayer Brown team.”
Mr. Rooney has represented issuers and underwriters in connection with domestic and international securities offerings of equity, debt and hybrid securities, including registered public offerings by non-US issuers and offerings pursuant to Regulation S and Rule 144A. He has extensive experience in negotiating and structuring M&A transactions within the insurance and financial services industries. Mr. Rooney also counsels domestic and international clients on corporate governance matters and director fiduciary duties.
Structured financings in which Mr. Rooney has served as transaction counsel include: numerous catastrophe bond offerings; the first securitization of life insurance regulatory reserves; the first securitization of private equity investment portfolios by an insurance company; the first cross-border credit card future-flow transaction; and the first securitization of insurance policy loans.
“Over the past decade and more, Mayer Brown has built a world-class insurance practice with more than 100 lawyers in the US, Europe and Asia offering specific insurance and reinsurance transactional, dispute resolution and regulatory and compliance experience,” said Mayer Brown Chairman Herbert W. Krueger. “This has included some terrific new lateral partners in recent years. With Steve’s arrival, we are looking forward to continuing to expand our ability to serve the legal needs of insurance industry clients, which is an important and ongoing strategic priority for Mayer Brown.”
Richard A. Spehr, partner-in-charge of Mayer Brown’s New York office, said, “Steve’s arrival underscores our focus on growth in New York, where we have added more than a dozen lateral partners in the last two years in practices including Capital Markets, Banking & Finance, Corporate & Securities, Real Estate and Restructuring, Bankruptcy & Insolvency.”
