Mourant du Feu & Jeune, an offshore law firm, has added Richard de Basto and Matthew Feargrieve to its Cayman funds and finance practice groups, respectively. De Basto joins from Allen & Overy, where he was a partner for close to eight years and concentrated on asset, construction and project finance. De Basto’s current practice includes Islamic finance, restructuring and insolvency, leveraged finance, global loans, securitization and real estate finance. He will be based in Mourant’s Cayman office. Feargrieve joins from Maples and Calder, where he was senior associate in the London office, advising on Cayman and BVI investment fund structures for hedge and private equity funds. Feargrieve has worked with onshore counsel in the U.S., E.U. and MENA on multi-jurisdictional transactions. He will be based in the firm’s London office and will work alongside the Cayman-based funds team. Neal Lomax, partner and investment funds specialist, currently heads that team. In other people news, Mark Escott has moved from Lloyds TSB Bank after a nearly six-year stint as head of securitization to take up a similar position at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, London Branch. In his new role at BTMU, Escott will cover client securitization deals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mark will concentrate on growing the client securitization franchise using either the BTMU-sponsored conduit Albion or the bank’s own balance sheet through direct origination and co-purchases.
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