Legal Business

RPC expands corporate practice with partner hires

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Strategic recruitment Gowling WLGRPC
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RPC has beefed up its corporate practice with the hire of three of Wragge & Co’s heavyweight partners as it targets more mid-sized deals for the largest FTSE 100 and 250 companies and multinational businesses.

The City Domestic firm hired Wragges’ former managing partner Richard Haywood and corporate head Maurice Dwyer. The duo joined fellow partner David Marshall at the beginning of the year.

Haywood was managing partner at Wragges from 2003 until 2006 and was also the firm’s corporate head. Most recently, he advised Premier Foods on the £182m sale of its canning division to Princes Foods.

Legal Business

Panic has ramped up merger mania

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Legal mergers FieldfisherGowling WLGWomble Bond Dickinson
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A clear message from last month’s LB100 report was that the merger of two firms that have ‘simply cuddled together for bodily warmth to escape the chill of the recession’ could be a defective strategy. However, it seems that the appetite for mergers between struggling firms in the mid-market shows no signs of slowing down.

Legal Business

Tough decisions needed for LG/FFW

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Legal mergers FieldfisherGowling WLG
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Ahead of our LB100 report next month, one merger is on the table that requires some hard choices now to be a future success.

Lawrence Graham (LG) has confirmed it is ‘evaluating a merger’ with City rival Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW). The deal would put the new firm comfortably in the top 25 of the LB100 with an expected turnover of over £150m.

Legal Business

Shakespeares and Harvey Ingram announce merger

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Legal mergers Gowling WLGShakespeare Martineau
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Acquisitive Birmingham firm Shakespeares has continued its explosive growth of the last few years by announcing that it is set to combine with Leicester-based stalwart Harvey Ingram on 1 August 2012.

At press time both firms were expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of a union in a partners’ ballot at each firm at the end of June, according to Shakespeares’ commercial director Hamish Munro.

Legal Business

Crunch time

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Property CMS UKGowling WLG
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The past few years have seen dramatic changes at Lawrence Graham and Nabarro, two firms hit hardest by the real estate downturn. But as LG approaches its 300th anniversary, it is looking its age, while Nabarro still has its bite

Before you embark on a rebrand there’s so much to consider. How much are you willing to invest in a renaming and follow-up marketing campaign? How do you attract new clients without alienating longstanding business partners? Will you share your identity with a household-name electronics manufacturer? Evidently, the last issue is easily overlooked.

Legal Business

Cards on the table

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France Gowling WLG
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Wragge & Co’s decision to launch in Paris sees its notoriously prudent partnership taking a rare gamble. Legal Business reveals the ambitious new strategy now underpinning Birmingham’s largest legal powerhouse

If you’re wearing a suit when you meet Quentin Poole you’ll feel overdressed. He looks more like a teacher than a lawyer: no jacket, top button undone, no tie. The softly-spoken senior partner of Birmingham’s biggest firm perfectly personifies the self-styled benevolent culture of Wragge & Co, a culture that ensures it is a permanent feature on the Financial Times’ best places to work list. But, like the firm, Poole’s unassuming demeanour masks a resolute efficiency that it is a mistake to underestimate. Wragges’ business ambitions are far from modest.