Tax Structured Finance Specialist, Raymond Holst, resigns from Morgan Stanley to join Latham & Watkins
Latham & Watkins has announced that Raymond Holst has joined the firm’s New York office as counsel in the Tax Department.
Holst is a leading tax attorney who has both law firm and financial institution experience. He joins Latham & Watkins from Morgan Stanley where he was an Executive Director in the Tax Counsel Group providing tax advice to a wide range of business units, including the principal investments, capital markets, investment banking, bank resource management (securities lending and repurchase transactions), securitized products, and wealth management groups. He has particularly deep experience in advising on an array of complex debt, equity-linked and hybrid structured products. He also has extensive expertise advising on withholding and Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) matters, and he served on the global FATCA steering committee of Morgan Stanley and as the chairperson of the Wall Street Tax Association’s FATCA committee.
Jimmy Brandt, Office Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins in New York, said: “Ray is a talented lawyer who brings a wealth of specialized experience to our practice. His background strongly complements both our tax practice and our financial institutions capability, and we are thrilled to welcome him to the team.”
“Ray’s deep institutional experience and understanding of complex financial products are great assets to our team,” said David Raab, Global Chair of Latham’s Tax Department.
Rafal Gawlowski, Co-Chair of the firm’s Global Financial Institutions Industry Group, added: “Over the last couple of years, we have added significant heft to the regulatory and financial institutions industry practice. Ray’s technical proficiency and advisory skills mark him as one of the truly leading practitioners in the field. His addition adds more momentum to the development of our practice and to our aim of servicing, on a cross-border basis, the top global financial products structurers and providers.”
“Latham & Watkins offers a compelling platform on which to further build my practice. The firm’s track record of advising financial institutions and the breadth of its corporate finance, banking, regulatory and tax practices make it one of the elite firms capable of advising on the most challenging and complicated matters. I look forward to joining the team and contributing to the continued expansion of the practice,” said Holst.
Latham & Watkins’ global financial institutions practice has extensive experience in transactional, regulatory and litigation matters. The team has earned a reputation for innovative legal counsel advising both sell-side and buy-side on complex, cross-border transactions involving cutting-edge financial products in both public and over-the-counter markets across various asset classes. Latham’s pre-eminent financial regulatory expertise makes the firm particularly well suited to handle such transactions in a rapidly changing regulatory environment.
Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Holst was an associate in the tax group of Davis Polk. He received his law degree from the Columbia University School of Law, where he was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for academic achievement, and holds a B.A. from Union College.