Nixon Peabody LLP, which has one of the country’s largest public finance legal practices, announced last week that it will partner with industry newcomer OmniCap Group LLC to provide its clients with boutique services.
This new partnership gives Nixon access to the specialized investment advice, arbitrage rebate, and consulting services that smaller firms like OmniCap provide. As part of the deal, Nixon Peabody will invest an unspecified amount in the new advising firm and help the California-based company grow its client base.
OmniCap was established in 2004 by a handful of advisers who left Bond Logistix LLC, looking to start a firm that would be independent from the law firms it worked with. Logistix arose directly from the financial services group at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe LLP.
“I wanted to really expand the interest of other firms working with me,” said Jeff Smith, OmniCap’s founder and president who was with Logistix for about 11 years prior to starting OmniCap. “The way we’re structured now is superior to working at a wholly owned subsidiary because we have relationships with a lot of other law firms.”
Smith said the partnership with Nixon Peabody is his firm’s most important one to date, but added that there are no plans for Nixon to buy OmniCap.
“One of our challenges as a new firm is finding opportunities, basically business prospects, and they are a top-10 law firm,” Smith said.
For Nixon Peabody, the new alliance gives them something that many of their competitors, such as Orrick, already provide in-house.
“A number of law firms and accounting firms either have affiliates or businesses where they provide the kind of services that OmniCap provides,” Nixon partner Mitch Rapaport said. “We at Nixon Peabody wanted to offer our clients those kinds of services. OmniCap felt like aligning with a larger entity like us, active in the public finance arena, could produce lots of synergies — do the old, ‘One plus one is three.’ ”
OmniCap’s main office is in Hermosa Beach, Calif., and it has satellite offices in Dallas, New York, and Tampa. As part of the partnership, OmniCap will share office space with Nixon Peabody in New York and Los Angeles. Smith said he thinks this will not hamper OmniCap’s attempts to court business with other firms.
“We have to have an office somewhere,” he said. “When you work with other professionals in the industry, reputation is probably the real factor — as long as we’re not trying to pull Nixon Peabody in on something we’re doing with another firm.”
