Foley Gardere announced that Neal A. Bakare has joined the firm’s Finance Practice Group and Energy Industry Team as of counsel in the Houston office. He joins from Macquarie Bank Limited, where he served as Senior Vice President of Legal Risk Management.
Bakare is an experienced lawyer whose background includes time as both an in-house attorney and a private practice attorney at an international law firm. He has represented clients across the finance and energy industries, including investment banks, private equity funds, limited partnerships, public and private companies, hedge providers, and oil and gas corporations, among others.
“Texas continues to see heavy activity in the energy and financial services sectors, and we have a long history of successfully managing energy projects and financings,” said Michael F. Rogers, Foley Gardere’s Houston Office Managing Partner. “Neal’s experience as an in-house attorney, paired with his knowledge of the Houston market and beyond, will provide tremendous value to our clients locally and nationally. We are thrilled to have him on board.”
Bakare has worked on a wide variety of matters, including equity transactions, complex structured transactions, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures of assets and entities, debt financing transactions (in both borrowing and lending roles), mezzanine debt and senior secured borrowing base financing transactions, and hedging transactions, among other corporate legal counsel relating to financing activities. His representative experience includes providing counsel to large global investment banks on mezzanine financings of oil and gas corporations in the United States, Canada, France and Colombia and representing a large upstream oil and gas corporation in a bid for Permian Basin oil and gas assets.
“Our finance attorneys provide extensive transactional and counseling services to a wide range of clients in the financial services industry. Neal’s experience working on behalf of banks and other lenders, investors and borrowers will immediately benefit our team and our clients,” said Laura L. Bilas, chair of the firm’s Finance Practice Group. “We look forward to leveraging Neal’s understanding of the current market and his hands-on experience as we continue to grow our practice in Texas and beyond.”