London, 3 March 2008 – Baker & McKenzie LLP announced today the appointment of Peter Castellon as a Partner in the Firm's London Capital Markets Practice. Peter joins from Citigroup where he is currently Director and Counsel within their Markets & Banking Division.

Peter has been a member of the Citigroup legal team in London for the last 7 years, advising its capital markets team on a wide range of securities offerings and transactional activity including IPOs, follow-on and secondary offerings, block trades, rights offerings and offerings of convertible and exchangeable bonds. Prior to joining Citigroup Peter worked in the Securities Practices of Freshfields in London and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in New York.

Peter is well known and highly rated by both the investment banking community and amongst capital markets lawyers.  He is a regular speaker and contributor to events and articles on capital markets and securities topics. He is currently Co-Chairman of the European High Yield Association's Accounting and Due Diligence Working Group.

2007 was another extremely successful year for Baker & McKenzie's Capital Markets Practice. It acted on a total of 30 deals that closed during 2007 with a total deal value of approximately US$20 billion. Of these 30 deals, 18 were debt offerings and 12 were equity offerings; 23 were issuer representations and 7 were underwriter representations.  The Practice acted on a broad range of complex transactions across jurisdictions including the CIS, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Head of Corporate, Michael Caro commented: "We are very pleased to welcome Peter to the Firm. Baker & McKenzie's Capital Markets Practice is increasingly attracting a growing number of first tier investment banks as clients who have seen our strengths particularly in the emerging markets. We are committed to growing the practice and Peter's appointment reflects our need to expand partner resources to service a rapidly developing practice."

Peter commented: "I look forward to joining the firm. I have had extensive dealings with Baker & McKenzie while at Citigroup as they have acted both for Citigroup and for issuers whose securities offerings have been underwritten by the bank. I have been consistently impressed with their combination of first-rate international skills in London and local skills in other offices of the Firm."