Following the fallout of failed merger talks between Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Greenberg Traurig, it has emerged the UK firm’s leadership was an issue for the Miami giant.
The merger had promised to create a property and disputes giant across the Atlantic and one of the most distinctive law firms in the global market but was called off in March.
The talks, which the pair confirmed in February, had enjoyed substantial support in BLP’s muscular real estate practice and had been cited as a way for the City firm, led by managing partner Lisa Mayhew (pictured), to achieve its strategy to be the world’s leading property and infrastructure adviser.
Greenberg officially said that it ultimately walked away from a merger because of its belief that ‘culture eats strategy for lunch’ and its ‘conservative approach to financial risk’. But one senior partner at the Miami giant told Legal Business the firm became unhappy with the handling of the talks by BLP’s leadership, adding: ‘This was a major part in our decision not to merge with BLP.’
A deal would have created a firm with 2,700 lawyers and revenues of over a £1bn. Both firms had already made it clear that a deal would have involved full financial integration, which would have led to challenges over unifying their accounting and pay systems.
Greenberg’s executive chair, Richard Rosenbaum, said: ‘Greenberg Traurig is a substantially larger and more diversified firm than BLP. We therefore maintain much broader practice priorities. The core real estate practice which first attracted us is indeed impressive, as are other BLP practices, and we have a great deal of respect for the firm as a whole. Real estate is, of course, a core practice and one of our strongest brands, along with litigation and corporate (M&A, private equity, capital markets, finance), which are our largest areas… For Greenberg Traurig, it was quite exciting to enhance our practices, but not at the risk of materially diluting our cultural, financial and other priorities.’
He added that the firm ‘must intensely focus on integration and execution, including our continued build-out of a first class London office of an appropriate size in today’s world and the number one global real estate practice’.
There is a gap in profitability between the two firms. Profit per equity partner at Greenberg stood at $1.42m in 2014, against £661,000 ($1.09m) for the UK firm’s 2014/15 year. Mayhew told Legal Business: ‘There was no one single thing. There was enough there to warrant proper consideration but in the final analysis there just wasn’t enough common ground to progress the conversation further.’
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk