Lawyer headcount 503
Partners 104
Revenue €190m (-1%)
Offices Paris, Brussels, London, Warsaw, Moscow, Istanbul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, New York, Algiers, Casablanca, and Tunis.
Key clients BNP Paribas, Eni, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, LVMH
Managing partner Stéphane Puel (pictured)
Recent work highlights Advising DCNS on a €32bn programme for the design and construction of Australia’s future submarines; advising Veolia Environnement on the first issue of €2bn Panda bonds; and advising Agence des participations de l’État on the €2bn+ privatisation of Nice and Lyon airports.
For France’s largest independent, full-service firm ‘2017 should be a good year’, according to Stéphane Puel, managing partner of Gide Loyrette Nouel.
Reorganisation was the key theme in 2016, with flat revenues much the same as they were five years ago. ‘We decided to work less on revenue and more on profitability, accounting, charges and streamlining of our business units,’ says Puel. In profit terms, this produced its best year since 2007.
There has been plenty of work, not least the €32bn DCNS deal to supply submarines to Australia, which involved beating competing bids from international firms, and the €2bn+ privatisation of Nice and Lyon airports for the French treasury. Another active client is AccorHotels, for which Gide has undertaken several real estate deals. Elsewhere, the firm has been advising the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and GIC, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, in the French real estate market.
Puel says that M&A work is solid while finance remains a strong asset of the firm with a growing department. ‘We are competing with the global firms in that area. We’ve been on a number of big financings in the French market.’ Meanwhile, litigation and arbitration has been booming with banking and stock exchange investigations, including advice given to an international bank on the Euribor case.
Internationally, Gide shares offices with Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira, Chiomenti and Gleiss Lutz in London, China and Brussels; a joint regulatory hub in Frankfurt; and a fully merged office with Cuatrecasas in Casablanca.
Puel believes that Brexit will potentially bring in a lot of work for jurisdictions outside the UK. ‘International clients have been investigating relocation of all, or part of their services. For us, this has brought considerable work for diverse clients: fintech, private equity funds, investment banks and very big UK financial institutions.’
He identifies significant movement between international firms in Paris, alongside the continued consolidation of niche firms in the future. ‘The market is incredibly competitive. Of the big independent firms, we are the only one surviving. That’s why we have been working so much on profitability and performance: to stay at the top of the market because the competition is getting fiercer and fiercer. We have to fight with both hands.’