Euro Elite 2024: Ireland – Under pressure

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Euro Elite 2024: Ireland – Under pressure

Despite recent laments from London corporate pundits over a depressed deals market, the view of many is that the Irish market is bucking global trends.

Stephen Keogh, William Fry’s head of corporate, says: ‘From a transactional point of view, the big feature this year so far has been a smaller amount of multi-billion deals and probably a lower average deal size, but all of our data is pointing to a similar volume of transactions this year compared with last year, which is kind of surprising given there’s so much negative global sentiment out there.’ Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Ireland – Under pressure”

Euro Elite 2024: Italy – Time to shine

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Euro Elite 2024: Italy – Time to shine

The instability caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and exacerbated by Russia’s war with Ukraine, with the resulting gas supply difficulties and growing inflation, has affected the Italian legal market as much as anywhere else. This notwithstanding, Italy’s leading independent law firms were able to curb the slowdown in some practices and achieve excellent results in others, most notably through investment in technology and new talent.

Perhaps the most interesting development was the launch, on 1 January 2024, of PedersoliGattai, resulting from the merger of Gattai, Minoli Partners and Euro Elite firm Pedersoli, together with a third group of professionals led by Carlo Montagna and Stefano Cacchi Pessani. PedersoliGattai has ambitions to be an Italian legal powerhouse offering consultancy services in a range of practice areas. The firm hopes, according to founding partner Bruno Gattai, to provide ‘better advice on cross-border deals in M&A and banking and finance’. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Italy – Time to shine”

Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning

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Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning

With soaring interest rates, global instability, as well as political and economic insecurity both at home and abroad, the beginning of 2023 was a cautious and uncertain time for law firms across the Nordic region, particularly given the tumultuous year that was 2022. Nevertheless, the region has remained remarkably resilient to global pressures, with firms seeing 2024 as a year of opportunity, driven in part by weak local currencies in Sweden and Norway, developments in AI and ESG mandates, and a surprisingly active corporate space.

‘Like most lawyers, we were surprised at how good 2023 was,’ says Jan Dernestam, managing partner at Mannheimer Swartling. ‘We had to predict cautious budgets for 2023, but it’s looking like we’re up roughly 10% from 2022. This goes for most of the larger firms in Scandinavia.’ Overall, he notes: ‘It’s difficult to pick one area where we’ve been busy because we’ve been busy all over,’ despite the initially challenging market. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Nordics – Horizon scanning”

Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully

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Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully

The Southern European market has been largely dictated by the recent inflow of foreign investment to the region, as the real estate, renewable energy, and corporate spheres profited extensively throughout 2023. The Euro Elite’s Southern Europe contingent comprises firms from the highly competitive Israeli and Greek markets. While Israel is technically not in Europe, it has been included in the Euro Elite analysis for some years. However, the country’s war against Hamas has sent shockwaves through its $431bn economy, affecting many thousands of businesses and plunging many industries into crisis – making any assessment of the legal market inappropriate at present.

At the close of 2023, Greece’s economic growth continued to outstrip that of other European nations, with the country experiencing a sector boom in the real estate and construction industries. George Bersis, managing partner of POTAMITISVEKRIS, partly attributes the progress down to ‘the reforms of the current pro-business government kicking in’ alongside ‘foreign direct investment’. Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe is championing this investment drive, as evidenced by its purchase of five high-end hotel resorts for €178m. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Southern Europe – Treading carefully”

Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race

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Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race

Switzerland’s legal market faces similar reversals to the world at large: regulatory shifts, geopolitical flux and technological advancements are keeping partners on their toes. ‘The legal market is always developing in parallel to the general economic situation,’ comments Bär & Karrer’s Susanne Schreiber, who co-heads the firm’s tax team. In Q1 2023, Switzerland’s annual inflation rate rose to a high of 3.4% in February, 0.6% up on December 2022. In Q2, things started to look up with rates decreasing to 2.6% in April. Since then, rates have been on a steady decline, remaining at 1.7% for both September and October 2023.

Interest rates, too, have stabilised. Since July 2023, the Swiss National Bank has kept its policy rate at 1.8%, providing a sense of stability to the Swiss economy. Practice areas such as litigation and tax were extremely busy in 2023 while areas like M&A and capital markets saw a decrease in deal volume compared to previous years. Banking and finance and real estate and construction remained stable throughout the year. Continue reading “Euro Elite 2024: Switzerland – Endurance race”

Tech outlook in Cyprus in 2024

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Tech outlook in Cyprus in 2024

In recent years, Cyprus has cultivated a thriving tech eco-system, positioning itself as a strong innovator, with a commitment to driving competitiveness and strategic service delivery. The country’s ICT sector is said to have contributed €3bn+ to the Cypriot economy in 2022, constituting 13% of the country’s GDP—a substantial leap from 7% in 2019 and 8.5% in 2020. Notably, €1bn is reportedly attributed to the influx of international firms and specialised human talent to Cyprus, a trend accelerated by the conflict in Ukraine.

In 2023, we observed Cyprus make remarkable progress in the technology sector. Fuelling this growth was the emergence of tech start-ups and digital enterprises, supported by government initiatives and organisations like TechIsland, Cyprus’ largest tech association, designed to attract high-calibre tech corporations worldwide. With over 270 member companies, TechIsland aims to enhance the tech industry’s operating environment, unite diverse stakeholders, and promote sustainable growth, contributing significantly to the country’s economic prosperity through tech.
Continue reading “Tech outlook in Cyprus in 2024”

Q&A: Kristóf Ferenczi, firm managing partner, discusses the future of Kinstellar

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Q&A: Kristóf Ferenczi, firm managing partner, discusses the future of Kinstellar

Can you share your journey in the legal field leading up to your current role as managing partner?

I started my legal career more than two decades ago as a trainee at the then-established Budapest office of Linklaters, and during my early years I was also seconded to the firm’s London office. My early professional years also included time at a CEE-based independent firm and DLA Piper’s Budapest office before returning to Linklaters. In 2008, as a result of Linklaters’ withdrawal from the CEE region, partners from the affected offices laid the foundation for a new firm, leading to the creation of Kinstellar in November 2008. I became a partner in 2009, and head of the firm-wide energy service line. I was appointed managing partner of the Budapest office in 2020 and became Kinstellar’s firm managing partner as of January 2024.

Continue reading “Q&A: Kristóf Ferenczi, firm managing partner, discusses the future of Kinstellar”

Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence

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Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence

Last year, our annual Euro Elite survey of 100 leading independent firms across more than 40 jurisdictions found partners in a positive mindset but nervous about the potentially bleak outlook for 2023. Those fears had some foundation.

Key market players – both new and old – said that the continent’s law firms would be remiss to forget that geopolitical conflict, the energy market crisis, the tightening of monetary policy and economic contraction loomed around the corner. The subsequent belt-tightening and inertia in the European deals market over the past 12 months has shown this has come to pass. Firms generally are quieter in terms of major corporate mandates and have a larger headcount than the boom year of 2021. This has inevitably taken its toll. Continue reading “Resistance is agile – Euro Elite firms adapt to survive amid global turbulence”

The road to recovery – how Türkiye’s law firms are pulling through

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The road to recovery – how Türkiye’s law firms are pulling through

Following the devastating earthquakes that rocked Türkiye and Syria in February 2023, rescue, recovery and rehabilitation remain some of the dominant topics of conversation among the Turkish legal community.

The tragedy resulted in the deaths of more than 55,000 people across the two countries, with more than 17 million estimated to have been affected in some way. Inevitably this has meant that a large swathe of the legal fraternity has been directly impacted on a personal level, with many family and friends affected, but law firms have more than risen to the challenge and made themselves available to aid in the recovery. Continue reading “The road to recovery – how Türkiye’s law firms are pulling through”