Moving to expand its cross-border mergers and acquisitions and private equity capabilities, Boston-based Edwards Wildman Palmer said Wednesday it plans to enter the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Northern Africa regions by launching an Istanbul office in association with the 12-lawyer, Istanbul-based Ismen firm.
Edwards Wildmanwhich was created from the 2011 merger between Boston’s Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge and Chicago’s Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon and has 585 lawyers, according to sibling publication The National Law Journal‘s most recent NLJ 250 ranking, already has 12 domestic offices, as well as international outposts in Hong Kong, London, and Tokyo. Ismen, which opened in 2004, specializes in transactions and is led by partners Tolga Ismen and Arzum Gunalcin.
Edwards Wildman was prompted to establish an Istanbul office, in part, as the result of the arrival of partner Theodore Cominos, who joined the firm in May 2012 and who previously headed Linklaters’s Central and Eastern European private equity group and CMS Cameron McKenna’s international private equity group. "Ted has a history of having focused his whole practice on doing private equity in this region," says Stephen Meredith, an Edwards Wildman executive committee member who works in its private equity and venture capital group. "He executed a strategy for Linklaters in the early 2000s that’s similar to what we’re doing now."
