Shearman & Sterling has secured a leader of its Texas finance team with its most recent lateral hire in Houston.
Daniel Tristan, who was previously at Baker Botts, said it was an “incredible opportunity” to join a sophisticated finance practice and bolster Shearman’s service to energy clients. He is the second Houston-based finance partner to depart Baker Botts in the past couple of months – Rachael Lichman joined Kirkland & Ellis in March.
A first-generation lawyer and native Texan, Tristan went to Harvard for undergrad and received his law degree from UC Berkeley. He started his legal career at Cravath before moving back to Texas in 2008 to join Fulbright & Jaworski in Houston.
Tristan advises issuers and lenders on a variety of financing needs – acquisition financings, event-driven financings, commercial paper, asset-based lending, reserve-based lending, debt restructurings and workouts, distressed investments and direct and special situations lending.
Oil and natural gas pipeline company Tallgrass Energy Partners kept Tristan particularly busy last year.
Tristan and Baker Botts advised Tallgrass on senior notes offerings of $750 million, $600 million and $430 million over the course of the year. He was also part of the team that guided the Leawood, Kansas company through its take-private deal by Blackstone Infrastructure Partners at the end of 2019.
Tristan says one of the things he is most proud of is that, with the help of strong management and bankers, Tallgrass has been able to get covenant grade for each notes issuance since he started working with the company.
In addition to the Tallgrass work last year, Tristan was part of the deal teams that advised BP in the $5.6 billion sale of its Alaska assets to Hilcorp and counseled Calumet Specialty Products in a $200 million private exchange offer of the company’s 2022 senior notes.
Earlier this year, Tristan helped close a revolving credit facility for a beloved local grocer.
The corporate finance lawyer says the capital markets spigot is open and he is seeing significant activity related to credit facility amendments and extension of maturities. Tristan notes he and his clients are also monitoring Libor related developments to ensure smooth and continued operations.
“All of my clients have my cell phone and they are not shy about calling,” he said. “I live for this and I love what I do.”