Chicago capital‑markets moves

A law firm and a mortgage broker both made Chicago moves this week, and both picked the same corner of finance: the deals that get harder when borrowers are rich on paper, leveraged, or paid in ways a standard checklist does not like. Winston & Strawn added debt-finance partner Lee Discher in Chicago on April 8, and LendFriend Mortgage opened a Chicago office on April 9 with jumbo, bank-statement, and asset-depletion loans. (winston.com, abnewswire.com) Discher’s job is not plain corporate lending. Winston said he advises corporate borrowers and private equity sponsors in complex business transactions with a focus on debt finance, which is the part of a deal where companies borrow large sums and lawyers turn the promises into binding documents. (winston.com)) Bloomberg Law reported that Discher came from Kirkland & Ellis, where he had been a partner, so this was also a talent raid inside one of the busiest legal markets for private equity work. In Chicago finance law, hiring one partner is often less like adding one worker and more like adding a portable client book and a specialty bench. (news.bloomberglaw.com) Winston’s own banking and finance profile already emphasizes cross-border credit facilities, revolving credit lines, and asset-based lending. Adding another leveraged-finance partner suggests clients are still paying for lawyers who can sort out layered debt packages instead of simple one-loan structures. (chambers.com, winston.com) The mortgage side of the story points at the same pattern from the consumer end. LendFriend said its new Chicago office will focus on jumbo loans for high-value homes, bank-statement loans for borrowers whose income shows up in deposits instead of salary slips, and asset-depletion mortgages that count wealth as a source of repayment. (abnewswire.com, lendfriendmtg.com) Those products exist because standard underwriting was built for W-2 paychecks, predictable tax returns, and loan sizes that fit agency rules. A Chicago buyer with a seven-figure house, a business owner with irregular income, or a retiree with large assets but little monthly salary can all look strong financially and still fail a plain-vanilla mortgage screen. (usatoday.com, lendfriendmtg.com) LendFriend tied the office to a wider map than downtown Chicago alone. The company said the expansion covers the city, North Shore communities including Northbrook, Highland Park, and Glencoe, and a broader Midwest footprint that includes Michigan and Ohio. (abnewswire.com) Put the two announcements together and Chicago looks less like a market cooling into simplicity and more like one still paying for customization. On one side, companies and private equity firms want lawyers for debt-heavy transactions; on the other, affluent or non-traditional borrowers want mortgage products that can translate messy real-life finances into an approval. (abfjournal.com, abnewswire.com) That is why these two small Chicago items fit together. When firms hire specialists and lenders open offices around exceptions, it usually means the plain middle of the market is not the only place business is getting done. (winston.com, lendfriendmtg.com)