Addleshaw Goddard has further strengthened its finance team by hiring structured finance expert Rachel Kelly from US firm McDermott Will & Emery.

Rachel brings with her three decades of experience at major international law firms, including as a partner at both Clifford Chance and Macfarlanes. Her work has been across the full spectrum of structured finance and debt capital markets transactions, public and private, national and international, advising the full range of market participants. Rachel will be joined at AG by Kerry Pettigrew, with whom she has worked since 2015. Kerry will join AG as a legal director.

These appointments mark another step in AG's continued investment in its City finance practice. The recruitment of debt capital markets specialist Beth Collett in 2017 from Allen & Overy was followed by the 2018 addition of real estate finance expert Zak Ipkonmwosa from Clifford Chance, and then leveraged finance partner Peter Crichton also from McDermott Will & Emery and speciality finance and funds finance partner Zoe Connor from Haynes & Boone last year. The UK Finance & Projects division now comprises 264 people with over 100 based in the City.

Amanda Gray, Finance and Projects Divisional Managing Partner, said:

"We've long had a strong reputation for depth of expertise in core mid-market debt products such as real estate finance, leveraged finance, asset finance and asset based lending. That reflects the longstanding strength and breadth of our relationship with the leading UK banks. However, the debt finance market is constantly evolving and we now work with a much broader range of market participants across a more diverse spectrum of specialist areas. We see increasing demand for structured finance skills across a range of finance sectors – consumer finance, asset finance, funds finance, speciality finance, trade finance, real estate finance and asset based lending – as well as demand for these skills in the context of balance sheet management for our funder clients.

"Rachel brings with her a huge wealth of experience and an enviable track record. She has the breadth of experience to work across a number of sectors and we are excited about the opportunities to deploy her expertise to support new and existing clients. Her expertise complements AG's strong financial services focus."