Sullivan & Cromwell made a major play last week with its hire of prominent private equity partner Karan Danamani from Allen & Overy. A Legal 500 Hall of Famer in high-value PE transactions, Danamani joined Allen & Overy from Ashurst in 2014, and has significant expertise in complex cross-border work.
The move marks a significant step for Sullivan & Cromwell: though the firm is strong in cross-border M&A, it currently has little presence in the UK and European PE market.
It also signals that, while the PE market may not be quite as red hot as it was a year or two ago, firms continue to see it as a key growth area.
Another firm active in this area was Linklaters, which hired experienced transactional partner Genna Marten from Travers Smith. Announcing Marten’s hire, Linklaters described its private equity and financial sponsors practice as ‘integral to its strategy’, and cited ‘significant demand’ in the area.
The loss of the well-regarded Marten will be keenly felt at Travers. Hers is the latest in a string of departures that saw the firm lose an estimated 10% of its partnership in the six months to February 2023, with five leaving its London office in January and February alone. Crucially, these moves included the firm’s former head of private equity Ian Shawyer, who departed for Cleary Gottlieb in January.
Fried Frank, meanwhile, has picked up former Dickson Minto banking and finance head Chris Barron. Barron has extensive experience in sponsor-side PE work, and his move further expands Fried Frank’s London private equity practice, which swelled in size in 2022 with the hires of Andrew Rearick and Rachel Wolfenden in December and James Renahan in September.
Speaking to Legal Business, Barron explained that there were two primary reasons for his move. ‘Firstly, the growth opportunity which, with the investment that’s being made by Fried Frank in private equity in London, coupled with the opportunity to team up with an elite private equity practice in New York, speaks for itself.
‘Secondly, the clients. The prospect of continuing to offer our clients the same high quality of financing expertise that they expect from us but on a global platform that now gives them access to market-leading expertise in capital markets, high yield, restructuring, and asset management, is very exciting.’
He also noted that, while the market is cooling off somewhat after a blockbuster 2021, significant opportunities remain.
‘M&A and financing activity has been subdued through 2022 and into the first few months of 2023. Obviously it’s a challenging environment for our sponsor clients to sell in, and also for buyers, who find it difficult to raise finance. Nevertheless, despite all that, we have still seen a significant amount of new-money activity on the financing side, both financing acquisitions and refinancing existing debt. There are also a lot of opportunities in restructuring, where we have a high-quality team at Fried Frank.’
Barron’s departure is another blow for Dickson Minto, which lost its entire London office to Milbank in December last year.
In other moves, Paul Hastings confirmed its hire of Garreth Wong from Shearman & Sterling. Wong’s practice sees him act as both counsel and arbitrator on commercial, construction, and investment treaty arbitrations, in addition to representing clients in multijurisdictional litigation and investigations.
The hire comes after Paul Hastings expanded its London office with the hires of former Linklaters infrastructure heads Jessamy Gallagher and Stuart Rowson, as well as restructuring specialist Helena Potts, who also came to the firm from Shearman.
No specific start date has been announced for Wong, and at time of publication he remains a partner at Shearman.
Elsewhere, commercial litigation partner Melanie Hart has left Ince Gordon Dadds for Kingsley Napley. Hart will join the firm’s expanding dispute resolution group, where she will focus on building out its offering in contentious data protection and IP services, in addition to continuing to advise on general commercial disputes.
This new data protection and IP offering for Kingsley Napley follows the launch of a tax disputes and investigations practice under former Mishcon de Reya partner Waqar Shah, who joined the firm last week.
Finally, Russell-Cooke has hired construction partner Pippa Beesley into its real estate team. Beesley joins from Bevan Brittan, and expands Russell-Cooke’s capabilities in both contentious and non-contentious construction work.
