London headcount: 212 lawyers, 44 partners
Lawyer headcount change since 2017: 24%
London managing partner: Tom Thesing
Office specialties: Private equity, M&A, life sciences, financial services, restructuring, antitrust, investment funds, privacy, insurance, litigation and global finance
Representative matters:
- Recharge Industries on its acquisition of Britishvolt.
- Huma Therapeutics on its acquisition of AstraZeneca’s digital health platform AMAZE.
- Clearlake Capital Group on its acquisition of Chelsea Football Club and related affiliates.
- China Fortune Land Development on its $4.96bn offshore debt restructuring.
- One Equity Partners and Buckthorn Partners on the acquisition of Amey UK.
Launching its London practice in the mid-1990s, Sidley has enjoyed an eleven-year streak of revenue increases between 2012 and 2022 after making a strategic decision, in the mid-2010s, to place a greater focus on the private capital sector. Its London financial results for 2022 saw revenue grow 26% from 2021 to $186.6m.
Having grown its London headcount by 24% since 2017, the firm has built out its teams through a mixture of internal promotions and lateral hires. In 2022 and 2023 four prominent partners joined the London practice: Robert Darwin from Dechert, Tony Downes from Proskauer, Kieran Sharma from Strategic Value Partners and Phil Cheveley from Shearman & Sterling. This was supplemented by two internal partner promotions in 2023.
London managing partner Tom Thesing comments: ‘We prioritise cultivating our talent internally, while at the same time looking to supplement the team in areas where we think talent is available to us in the market’. Embedding associate training through its Built to Lead programme, the firm aims to provide opportunities for its lawyers to develop both their technical legal knowledge and business development skills to promote internal talent.
At the junior end of recruitment, Thesing suggests that the war for talent may be beginning to slow. However, Sidley will continue to remunerate based on attracting the best junior lawyers. ‘Do I see it continuing to rise? I would be hard pressed to say that, but I do think that those looking for the best talent will always be at the top of the market.’
Growth is now focused on consolidating its position in the market and bolstering existing client relationships. Thesing says ‘repeatable, sustainable business is the lifeblood of firms like ours. We value all of our client relationships and look to continue to do work for them year in and year out.’
The London practice will continue to build its ‘business around those key pillars of being able to deliver for our global clients, including our private capital clients, as well as looking at various industry verticals such as life sciences, insurance, energy and infrastructure, some of those core areas where we serve our clients globally and where we were able to capture a significant portion of the market here in London and more generally in Europe,’ Thesing observes.
Against a backdrop of increasing geopolitical uncertainty and market volatility, the London practice is keen to offer a holistic service for clients throughout their relationship with the firm.
‘We want to make sure that our clients’ needs are best served by the teams that we are assembling, and increasingly, that requires cross-disciplinary teams that include regulatory lawyers, antitrust lawyers, transactional lawyers, dispute and restructuring lawyers. The market is so dynamic at the moment, and clients need to be able to draw on all those resources.’
Following the Ukraine invasion, the firm has seen an uptick in sanctions work and advisory work on supply chains. Thesing comments that the war ‘has been longer running than many people might have thought, so as horrendous as it sounds people are getting used to the operating environment as something that may be with us for a long time’.
While the firm intends to continue growing its European offerings, growth expectations across its four offices differ. The London office is expected to be the forerunner, followed by the Munich office as both focus on private capital and restructuring. ‘The work we do out of Brussels and Geneva tends to be more regulatory, and linked to antitrust, life sciences, international trade and global arbitration. Those will grow commensurate with the size of those businesses,’ Thesing notes.
He is optimistic that the distinction between US firms and UK magic circle firms is receding, with US and UK firms now competing for the same business. He is confident about the London practice’s position in the market, adding: ‘You’re seeing a smaller number of firms who are increasingly capturing a larger share within the global marketplace. We believe we are in that group. Capturing more share as we continue to grow our business and being in that top tier’.