From January 2007
James T. Hitch, III
Managing Partner
Mr. James Hitch is the Managing Partner of the Kyiv office and the Co-Managing Partner of Baker & McKenzie’s offices in the CIS. He graduated from Princeton University in 1971 and the Harvard Law School in 1975. He started his career with the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie, in 1975, and has spent his entire career with this Firm, becoming an International Partner in 1982. Mr. Hitch became the Managing Partner of the Kyiv Office of Baker & McKenzie in January 2002, after nearly 5 years in the Firm’ s St. Petersburg Office preceded by 22 years in Firm’s Chicago Office. Mr. Hitch has been a member of the Board of Directors and of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Ukraine since 2003. He was also elected to the AmCham Board’s Policy Committee in 2004 and since 2007 he serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Hitch has over 30 years of broad experience in advising major multinational corporations on their business activities in Central and Eastern European countries, including setting up joint ventures and assisting with their strategic acquisitions in Ukraine. The recent capital markets projects, in which Mr. Hitch was heavily involved, include the following completed IPOs: IPO of Kernel Holding S.A., the Luxembourg holding company of the leading producer and marketer of bottled sunflower oil in Ukraine, AIM listing of XXI Century Investments, one of the leading Ukrainian real estate and property developers, and IPO of Astarta-Kyiv, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. His experience also includes legal assistance the world’s leading multinationals in the context of their business activities in Ukraine. Mr. Hitch recently supervised a team of lawyers, who advised PepsiAmericas, Inc, and PepsiCo with respect to their joint USD678 million acquisition plus assumed debt of 100% of the shares of the Sandora LLC, the leading manufacturer of branded packaged juices and juice nectars in Ukraine. In addition to this, he has been involved in setting up investment funds and is currently advising four Ukrainian companies on their prospective IPOs and pre-IPO restructurings.
Mr. Hitch is named among the top five practitioners in the areas of corporate law, and mergers & acquisitions in Ukraine. The 2006-2008 editions of Chambers Globaland PLC Which Lawyer? named James Hitch as a highly experienced partner in the area of corporate law, mergers & acquisitions and international investment. He is also recommended for expertise in investments in the 2005-2007 editions of “Ukrainian Law Firms: A Handbook for Foreign Clients”. According to the independent research held by International Financial Law Review for IFLR1000 Yearbook 2008, James Hitch is listed among the top corporate specialists for the three years in a row. Additionally, the 2008 edition of Chambers Europe highly regarded James Hitch as the main contact for corporate/M&A work in Central and Eastern Europe.
