Wasserstein’s Former Investment Firm Hires Paul Weiss Lawyer

A storied investment firm operating under a new name has recruited a longtime Paul Weiss lawyer to serve as its first-ever general counsel.

Stephanie McCavitt, who spent the past 20 years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison—most of them as a counsel in the law firm’s private funds practice in New York—is now general counsel of Eagletree Capital LP, the firm announced Feb. 5.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with EagleTree’s senior partners for more than a decade, and I am thrilled to be joining such a prominent firm at this time of tremendous momentum,” McCavitt said in an EagleTree statement about her hire. McCavitt was unavailable Thursday to discuss her decision to join EagleTree.

McCavitt is the “first dedicated in-house general counsel” for EagleTree, a spokeswoman told Bloomberg Law. The firm had previously been known as Wasserstein & Co., a New York-based family office and private investment firm formed by late lawyer-turned-financier Bruce Wasserstein after the $1.4 billion sale of his boutique investment bank Wasserstein Perella & Co. to Dresdner Bank AG in 2001.

Wasserstein, a Harvard Law School graduate and former associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, died in October 2009. At the time, he was chairman and CEO of financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard Ltd., which Wasserstein took public in 2005.

During her time as outside counsel, McCavitt had advised EagleTree on three private equity funds and its recent structured financing and minority stake sale transactions, according to the investment firm’s statement.

In mid-January, EagleTree was advised by Paul Weiss and Lazard as it secured an undisclosed amount of financing from the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund Board, The Carlyle Group LP-owned AlpInvest Partners, New York-based Bullingham Capital, and London-based family office Misland Capital Ltd.

EagleTree Assets

McCavitt is the sole legal chief at EagleTree, but she’s not the only attorney working at the firm.

EagleTree co-managing partner George Majoros Jr., who joined the firm in 1993 when it was still known as Wasserstein Perella, began his career as an associate at Jones Day. EagleTree senior partner Robert Fogelson also started his career as an M&A and corporate finance associate at Cravath.

Jones Day advised EagleTree, then known as Wasserstein & Co., on its 2014 $417 million acquisition of ALM Media LLC, a New York-based media company that owns trade publications like The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, the New York Law Journal, and GlobeSt. The deal was a buy back for EagleTree, which under Wasserstein’s leadership had sold ALM for $630 million in 2007.

Other current portfolio companies include the Invincible Boat Co.—EagleTree tapped Jones Day to advise it last summer on its purchase of the saltwater fishing boat brand—as well as AirTech Inc., Corsair Components Inc., FuseFX Inc., and Northstar Travel Group.

New York Media LLC, owner of New York Magazine and five other digital media brands such as Grub Street and Vulture, remained separately owned by the Wasserstein family office prior to its sale last year to Vox Media Inc. Pamela Wasserstein, a daughter of the late financier, started her career as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz before eventually becoming CEO of New York Media.

Wachtell counseled the media company on its all-stock merger with Vox, which was advised on the transaction by Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian.