The arrival of July marked a heightened pace of lateral hires by UK firms boosting their London bases. Simmons & Simmons recruited to its corporate team, while Dentons, Watson Farley & Williams (WFW), RPC and PwC also appointed key new partners.
Chris Walton has moved to Simmons & Simmons’ corporate team in London, moving from Clifford Chance (CC). Walton, who joins after 16 years at CC’s London office, is a capital markets partner experienced in representing major US and international banking firms which act as underwriters in private equity offerings.
Simmons’ international head of corporate and commercial, Mark Curtis, said that Walton will play a ‘key role’ in the continued growth of the firm’s London capital markets practice. He joins Simmons following similar capital market moves earlier this year, by Jonathan Mellor and Simon Ovenden.
Dentons has also added to its London team, hiring Alex Tostevin as a tax partner from Weil Gotshal & Manges. He is experienced advising clients across the real estate, infrastructure, financial services, energy and technology tax sectors.
Dentons tax partner Alex Thomas said that Tostevin’s experience and international client-base will help the firm deal with incoming tax initiatives such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) strategy. These initiatives will generate ‘vast amounts of work’, Thomas added.
WFW has also appointed several partners to its London office, bringing in corporate partner Colin Graham from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and transport partner Louise Mor from White & Case.
Graham has 18 years’ experience of advising on cross-border issues in the energy and power sectors, focusing predominantly on M&A transactions and project developments.
Mor, who joins WFW on 10 July 2017, is specialised in rail, aviation and equipment financing. Mor also has an international client-base consisting of European and US lenders as well as private entities worldwide.
Big Four accountancy firm PwC has expanded its pensions legal team with the hire of Ashurst’s pensions head Marcus Fink.
Fink has 18 years’ experience of advising clients on pension scheme reorganisations and mergers, and at PwC he will advise companies on their investment funding strategies.
Head of PwC’s pensions legal practice, Oliver Reece, commented: ‘Our ability to offer clients a broad suite of pensions advice from right across PwC helps us stand out from the crowd. We’ve spent time building the expertise and skills to meet the needs of our clients, and Marcus is an important addition to the team.’
Elsewhere, RPC has brought in Penningtons Manches’ technology and data partner Jon Bartley. Bartley, who was co-head of Penningtons Manches data team, advises clients on data protection matters.
