Latham & Watkins Partners Named American Lawyer 2025 Dealmakers of the Year
Latham & Watkins partners Nadia Sager, Lewis Kneib, and Pardis Zomorodi have been named American Lawyer (Am Law) 2025 Dealmakers of the Year for representing Lineage, the world’s largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT, in its highly successful IPO on the Nasdaq that priced at US$4.4 billion, and ultimately raised US$5.1 billion. The landmark transaction was the largest IPO of 2024 globally and is the largest IPO of a real estate company or REIT in history. Am Law’s annual awards program honors attorneys who led the most complex and impactful deals of the past year.
In a published profile, Am Law highlighted the complexity of the IPO and the tremendous amount of coordination between Latham’s REIT capital markets team and its private capital team, saying they “worked hand-in-hand to come up with a transition strategy that would support a transition of US$18 billion in value into the public markets over a three-year period.” Additionally, the profile emphasized the innovative legal strategies employed, including the development of a "novel private structure" by Latham's private capital team, which was successfully transitioned to the public markets.
Sager told Am Law the IPO was “many degrees of difficulty greater than anything else I have done in my 28 years of practicing law.”
The profile also noted Latham’s lifecycle work with Lineage for over a decade, guiding its transformation from a single warehouse operation to a global entity with 480 warehouses.
“Having been a part of the growth of this company almost from its inception made this IPO very personal,” Zomorodi told Am Law.
Kneib added that the work was “vast and constantly evolving,” but that makes it “exactly the type of IPO where the Latham platform excels.”
This recognition marks the seventh consecutive year that Latham partners have been named Am Law Dealmakers of the Year. Justin Hamill was recognized last year for advising on UFC’s US$21 billion-plus merger with WWE. In 2023, George Davis and Jeff Bjork were honored for representing Mallinckrodt in the multinational pharmaceutical company's successful Chapter 11 restructuring. Marc Jaffe and Tad Freese were named in 2022 for representing Rivian Automotive in its IPO, with Tad also recognized in 2021 for advising on Airbnb's IPO. Justin Hamill was honored in 2020 for advising Virgin Galactic in a transaction establishing the world’s first and only publicly traded commercial human spaceflight company, and Greg Rodgers in 2019 for representing Spotify in its groundbreaking direct listing on the NYSE.