July.20.2016
Orrick was once again recognized as the top bond counsel firm in the United States in The Bond Buyer. According to data collected by Thomson Reuters, Orrick was bond counsel on 217 deals totaling $22.12 billion par value during the first half of 2016 —equivalent to 10.4% of the market. This is an improvement over the 205 transactions totaling $20.69 billion, or 9.7% market share, that the firm handled during the first half of 2015.
"We are obviously happy with our firm's results for the first half of 2016," said Roger Davis, co-leader of Orrick's Public Finance team, in an interview with The Bond Buyer. He added, "The national market volume was down by about 4% compared to the first half of 2015. Orrick's volume was up by about 9%, and our market share jumped by almost two full percentage points to over 10%."
According to Roger, persistent low interest rates accompanied by threat of rate increases from the Federal Reserve led to a large number of refundings during the first half of 2016. "And on top of that, we saw increasingly robust new money financing activity, particularly in multifamily housing, health care, public and charter schools, energy (including alternative and distributed energy), even governmental purpose (general fund and enterprise revenue) projects, all sectors in which Orrick is particularly strong," he said.
In addition, Roger noted that the addition of an active public finance team in Orrick’s Houston office, which launched in January, has contributed to the firm’s results. "Looking ahead, we are as busy in all of our nine public finance offices around the country as I can remember being during the summer months," he concluded.