Nicolas Grabar, a New York capital markets partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, must have missed the memo explaining that global megadeal activity was supposed to be a bit thin during a recession. He was probably too busy billing.
While most securities lawyers tiptoed through turbulent markets during much of 2010, trying to nurse IPOs to completion, Grabar made like it was 2006 and personally worked on transactions worth an astonishing $120 billion. The kicker was his role in advising state-owned Brazilian oil giant Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) on its record-breaking $70 billion follow-on offering–the largest public share issue in history.
