Service Providers

Joseph W. La Barge has rejoined business and finance department of the law firm Ballard Spahr. La Barge previously was vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Tengion, a publicly traded biotechnology company. La Barge, of counsel, will focus on the representation of clients in the technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He handles mergers and acquisitions and capital raising activities, and drafts and negotiates licensing, research, collaboration, and manufacturing agreements.

San Diego-based Competitor Group, which is backed by Falconhead Capital, has named Scott Dickey president and chief executive officer. Dickey was previously president and chief operating officer. The company also announced that company CFO Steve Gintowt will take on the additional role of chief operating officer.

DC Advisory Partners has appointed a third managing director to its debt advisory group. Sergio Ronga has joined the London office and will work alongside Jonathan Trower and Ciara O’Neill. He will be responsible for advising on infrastructure and social service transactions.

Jeffrey Bunzel is joining Deutsche Bank’s equity capital markets group as a managing director and head of equity capital markets for the Americas. He will be based in New York. Bunzel will also become a member of the bank’s corporate and investment banking Americas executive committee. Bunzel joins from Credit Suisse, where he most recently served as head of equity capital markets for the Americas and co-head of the Americas global markets solutions group.

Timothy Steffen has joined investment bank Houlihan Lokey as a managing director in its global industrials group, the firm announced. Steffen previously was co-head of the Americas industrials practice as well as the European industrials practice at Nomura Securities in New York and London. Ryan O’Toole has joined Houlihan Lokey as a director in the aerospace, defense and government group. O’Toole was most recently a director at Lazard Frères & Co.

The investment bank Miller Buckfire & Co. has named Ron Kubick a managing director effective immediately. Kubick joins Miller Buckfire from Morgan Stanley where he was an managing director and led the firm’s restructuring finance and asset backed lending capital markets groups.

The law firm Morrison & Foerster has appointed energy transactions and financing attorney Michael Ginsburg to its San Francisco office as of counsel. Ginsburg represents independent power producers on the development, financing and acquisition of a wide range of projects, including fossil-fuel and renewable energy projects. His renewable work includes solar, wind, geothermal, landfill gas and biomass projects.

Charles Ward has joined Perella Weinberg Partners as a partner in its advisory service. Ward will be based in New York. Previously, Ward was president of Lazard Ltd. and also served as chairman of its Asset Management Group.

The law firm Ropes & Gray is to open an office in Seoul, Korea. The new office will be headed by two partners: William Yongkyun Kim, who chairs the firm’s Korea practice and David Chun, an IP litigator.

Woodbridge, a mid-market M&A advisory firm, has appointed David Olson as a managing director. Olson will focus on enhancing Woodbridge’s relationships with private equity groups, including expanding its sell-side advisory practice with private equity groups seeking to exit portfolio holdings.