Sarkis Jebejian
Mergers and acquisitions specialist Sarkis Jebejian became one of the few Cravath, Swaine & Moore partners to make a lateral move out of the firm when he joined Kirkland & Ellis's New York office Monday.
Like most lawyers who practice there, Jebejian, 43, began his career at Cravath, which he joined upon graduating from Columbia Law School in 1994. Since being promoted to partner in 2002, he has worked on major domestic and cross-border M&A transactions for such clients as BAE Systems, British American Tobacco, the independent directors of General Motors, NextEra Energy, and Northrop Grumman.
Jebejian's recent assignments include representing Flagstone Reinsurance in connection with its $623 million sale to Validus Holdings in August; Genpact on a $1 billion investment by Bain Capital that same month; and BAE Systems in connection with the sale of its Safariland subsidiary for $114 million in May.
Jebejian is just the second partner this year to leave Cravath, a firm that rarely finds itself in the lateral movement fray familiar to many of its Am Law 100 peers.
In January, Cravath lost environmental practice head Jeffrey Smith to Crowell & Moring. Smith, who had joined the firm 20 years earlier from the since-dissolved Clark, Ladner, Fortenbough & Young, was even more unusual in the context of Cravath in that he lateraled both into and out of the firm.
In 2011 another young M&A partner, James Woolery, left Cravath to become the cohead of client JPMorgan Chase's North American M&A group. As it happens, during an interview with The Am Law Daily at the time of his departure, Woolery cited Jebejian as one of seven Cravath M&A partners who routinely led deal teams for the firm. (For a comprehensive look at moves into and out of Cravath over the past decade, read our previous coverage here.)
Jebejian said it was a "tough decision" to leave Cravath, but that he was attracted to the "once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity" to join what he describes as Kirkland's more entrepreneurial practice.
Calls to Cravath presiding partner Evan Chesler and corporate head Scott Barshay were directed to a firm spokeswoman, who said in a statement that the firm wishes Jebejian well in the next stage of his career.
Jebejian is the first lateral M&A partner Kirkland has hired since recruiting New York–based David Fox and Daniel Wolf from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in May 2009 to bolster the firm's M&A practice. (Kirkland did hire a private equity partner, Taurie Zeitzer, from Latham & Watkins in August. It also lost New York M&A partner Karyn Koiffman to Baker & McKenzie in June.)
Though neither Jebejian nor Fox would say Monday when the two first began talking about a move, both noted that Jebejian has worked opposite Kirkland lawyers on several deals over the past five years, including Cravath client Genpact's 2011 acquisition of Kirkland client Headstrong for $550 million and The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company's bankruptcy. Kirkland represented A&P in that case, which concluded in March, while Jebejian and Cravath advised German-based A&P shareholder Tengelmann.
Jebejian said his familiarity with Kirkland's lawyers, combined with his new firm's global reach—Kirkland has 10 offices around the world to Cravath's two—and the recent growth of its M&A practice also helped draw him to the firm.
Asked how Kirkland's practice differs from Cravath's, Fox interjected: "Sarkis will be the key builder of a major practice here, as opposed to being a central partner in an already established practice [at Cravath]." Jebejian concurred, saying Fox's explanation is "exactly the right way to think about it."
According to the most recent league tables from mergermarket, which tracks worldwide M&A activity, Kirkland ranked ninth on the list of firms handling the most domestic deal work in the first three quarters of the year as measured by dollar value, and 13th in terms of global deal work. Cravath, meanwhile, ranked 12th domestically and 17th globally.
Among Kirkland's recent transactions, a team from the firm that includes Fox is representing Clearwire Communications in a deal under which Clearwire majority owner Sprint Nextel has agreed to buy the remaining shares in the company that it doesn't already own for $2.2 billion.
Though he didn't say so, Jebejian could be in a position to make more money as a result of the move. Though the two firms boast average profits-per-equity-partner figures that are roughly comparable—$3.1 million at Cravath in 2011, according to The American Lawyer's most recent Am Law 100 data, and $3.05 million at Kirkland—Cravath pays its partners using a lockstep scale based on seniority, with senior partners receiving three times as much as their junior colleagues, whereas Kirkland's top partners can make as much as eight times as much as lawyers at the bottom of the partnership ranks. (Those profit figures make the two firms' partners, respectively, the fifth- and seventh-highest compensated among The Am Law 100.)
Jebejian declined to say whether he is bringing any clients along with him to Kirkland but said he has gotten a positive reaction from those he's reached out to so far. But before doing any deals at his new firm, he has another agenda: "I will take a vacation."
