Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP is pleased to announce that Emily Stern has joined the firm’s New York office focusing on litigation and dispute resolution.

Davis Polk advised Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, LLC and Goldman, Sachs & Co. as lead managers on an SEC-registered offering by Royal Bank of Canada of US$1.25 billion aggregate principal amount of 1.45% senior notes due 2014 and US$750 million aggregate principal amount of senior floating-rate notes due 2014 under its US$25 billion medium-term notes program.

Winston & Strawn LLP announced today that it has again expanded its global intellectual property litigation group and regional capabilities with the addition of Alfred Fabricant and Lawrence Drucker as partners to its New York office. Fabricant will head the firm’s IP practice group in New York, as well. They join the firm from Dickstein Shapiro, LLP.

International law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP, led by Global Securities partners Marcelo Mottesi and Paul Denaro, represented Citigroup Global Markets Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Itau BBA USA Securities Inc. and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, as underwriters in the follow-on sale of shares of Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. (“Arcos Dorados”). The underwriters fully exercised their over-allotment option to purchase a total of 44,475, 958 shares from the selling shareholders raising US$978 million.

McGuireWoods LLP announced today that Laurent Wiesel has joined the firm as a partner. For the past decade, he has advised companies, financial institutions and individuals on a wide variety of complex litigation matters and investigations. Now at McGuireWoods, his practice will continue to be focused on commercial and corporate disputes, securities class actions, international arbitration, regulatory and criminal investigations, antitrust litigation and actions involving the interests of foreign sovereigns.

Davis Polk advised underwriters represented by BNP Paribas Securities Corp., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd. and RBC Capital Markets, LLC in connection with the offering of $1 billion aggregate principal amount of 1.25% U.S. dollar bonds due 2016, issued by Export Development Canada.

Arent Fox is pleased to announce that leading sports attorney Matthew D. Pace has joined the firm as a partner in New York.

Blank Rome LLP is pleased to announce that Stephen T. Whelan has joined the Firm as a partner in the Financial Services group. For more than 30 years, Mr. Whelan has built a substantial practice in the areas of equipment leasing and structured finance, secured lending, and asset securitization. Mr. Whelan is based in the Firm’s New York office.

The Firm represented The Carlyle Group and Oak Hill Capital Partners in their separate investments in the common stock of FNB United Corp. (“FNB”), which consummated a $310 million recapitalization and completed the acquisition of Bank of Granite Corporation (“Granite”) on October 21, 2011.

Davis Polk advised Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. in connection with its SEC-registered follow-on public offering of 44,475,958 Class A shares for an aggregate price to the public of approximately US$1 billion, including 4,043,268 shares that the underwriters purchased pursuant to an over-allotment option. All of the Class A shares were sold by certain shareholders. J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, BofA Merrill Lynch, Itau BBA and Credit Suisse acted as joint bookrunners for the offering. Arcos Dorados’ Class A shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ARCO.”