Market turbulence looks likely to only send the private equity bandwagon spinning faster… for those who can get on board
Markets can charge up or down, banking crises come and go, but it seems that it will take more than a little turmoil, uncertainty or even the spectre of Brexit to stop the rising influence of private equity and sponsors in Europe’s deal markets.
Continue reading “The M&A Report: Private equity offers the clients for all seasons”
We canvassed M&A veterans for their reflections on a changing environment for advisers as Brexit and uncertainty loom over Europe’s deal markets
‘The competition aspects of these deals are becoming more involved. If the government were to throw some grit into the works it could slow things down here.’
Charles Martin, Macfarlanes
‘What you have seen over the past 18 months is a larger number of major deals fall over, such as alliburton/Baker Hughes. There is no doubt antitrust has become harder in mega M&A, due to the number of jurisdictions you now have to file in and increased scrutiny from regulators. Parties to these deals have to have the appetite to live with a long gap between announcement and closing and be prepared to make divestments of the type we have seen in AB InBev/SABMiller. There are only a handful of top global firms that can provide the EU, US and Chinese antitrust advice on these type of deals.
We are confident there will be further foreign takeovers of UK plcs given the fall in sterling. Notwithstanding ongoing uncertainty around Brexit and the US elections, we are encouraged that the M&A landscape is quite well set for a stronger second half of the year.’
Charlie Jacobs, senior partner, Linklaters
Georgiana Tudor and Victoria Young talk to Tamara Box and Andrew Jenkinson about competing in the London market
Three years ago, Legal Business noted that an upwardly-mobile Reed Smith was, in its own understated fashion, making notable strides in the City under EMEA head Roger Parker. The London office had been performing well on the back of investment in lateral hires to develop its key sector groups. In 2012, London revenues jumped 21% to £114.7m from £94.5m, with Parker predicting UK revenues of $200m for 2013.
In a tough year for the deals market who will step up?
Key clients: Glencore, Lloyds Banking Group, Alinda
Partner since 2011
I always wanted to do M&A. I used to look at the financial papers at university and was always interested in the deals. As a Linklaters trainee I decided very quickly I wanted to do corporate. I enjoyed the transactions and being at the centre of client relationships.
Key clients: Shell, Mediclinic, RSA, Dentsu Aegis, Remgro, Priceline
Partner since 2015
I went into law on gut feel. A non-law student who studied history and French. When you start thinking about getting in the City and what would suit my skillset, law felt like the natural choice.
Continue reading “Rising Star: Rob Innes, Slaughter and May”
Key clients: Friends Life, Julius Baer, Novartis, Lloyds Banking Group
Partner since 2008
Why corporate? The sheer variety. The access to senior decision-makers in clients was fantastic.
Key clients: ARM Holdings, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Shire, Aggreko, WS Atkins
Partner since 2015
As a grammar school boy from Northern Ireland, I had two choices: lawyer or doctor, or I would get thrown out of the house. I did work experience at 15 at the local hospital. When I saw what the junior doctors had to do, I decided being a lawyer was for me.
Continue reading “Rising Star: Chris McGaffin, Slaughter and May”
Key clients: CVC Capital Partners, Charterhouse Capital Partners, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Middle East sovereign wealth funds
Partner since 2016
F1 is a big one for me [Hayes led on the Formula One sale to Liberty Media Corporation in September]. Particularly as a partner having tracked through the 2012 IPO attempt in Singapore. It’s a huge deal to do and one of great professional pride in the first few months of partnership.
Continue reading “Rising Star: Charles Hayes, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer”
Key clients: Cinven, 3i Group, Permira, General Atlantic
Partner since 2015
A key deal for me was the IPO of Spire Healthcare: I’d done the original buyout for Cinven in 2007 as a mid-level associate and then stayed with that deal until the IPO in 2014. That type of deal gets you under the skin of a business. It creates deep relationships with clients.
Continue reading “Rising Star: Victoria Sigeti, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer”
Key clients: Anheuser-Busch InBev, Tesco, Smiths Group
Partner since 2015
As a teenager I was desperate to be a criminal defence barrister. I did work experience with a barrister when I was 16 and loved it. At some point after becoming more educated about the profession, I wanted to work as part of a big deal team.
Continue reading “Rising Star: Alison Smith, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer”
‘Consolidation is an inevitable response in a market such as ours. There is only so much work, and we are all under pressure to be more efficient.’
Mark Rigotti, HSF
Following the proposed combination of CMS Cameron McKenna, Olswang and Nabarro, we asked law firm leaders their views on consolidation in the City
Global ambition
‘The demands our clients place on us to be ever more global, to handle matters that cross multiple borders, and to provide a comprehensive and quality-consistent service across a broader spectrum of expertise and geographies, means these ambitious mergers and combinations in the legal industry are inevitable and will likely continue apace. The trick to whether they will stick, though, is in the integration; it’s easy to do a merger, but it’s hard to really become merged – truly one partnership, one offering.’
Tamara Box, managing partner for Europe and the Middle East, Reed Smith
There is a school of thought that the late 1980s and early 1990s proved singularly fertile ground for developing outstanding corporate lawyers. You can see the logic. The deregulation of Big Bang ushered in fresh investment, players and techniques and unleashed a wave of activity to be swiftly followed by the early 1990s’ recession.
Young corporate lawyers honed their skills by exposure to new ideas when times were good, only to sharpen their business-winning instincts and apply their abilities in volatile markets that demanded flexibility and flair. Certainly, the generation of M&A partners that came through during those formative years has cast its shadow over the profession for a long time. But those days are ending as these figures either move into c-suite roles, retire or join clients.
Continue reading “Turbulence to shape next generation of M&A stars”
Pity the poor pundit obliged to come up with an opinion on the obtusely-forged union of CMS Cameron McKenna, Nabarro and Olswang. Despite representing one of the largest legal mergers in the UK, taking a view on the tie-up, good, bad or indifferent is challenging, not least because the trio have so far been strikingly gnomic over the whole thing.
The union combines three brands with impressive industry credentials across real estate, media, technology, financial services, energy and life sciences. That is a lot of sector to focus but in those areas, these outfits carry potency.
Continue reading “Camerons’ double merger adds up but will it multiply?”
I thought I’d be suited to law because I’ve always been interested in people. And discussion and debate and argument.
Continue reading “Life during law: Quentin Poole, Gowling WLG”
With new legislation putting human rights on the business agenda, we teamed up with Herbert Smith Freehills to gather lawyers and experts from a range of industries to debate the key issues
In our recent Insight report on business and human rights (see Soft law, hard sanctions – Human rights laws and the next risk front facing business) – published in September in association with Herbert Smith Freehills – we noted how the arrival of the Modern Slavery Act (MSA) in the UK in 2015 has crystallised the groundswell of awareness of the human rights concerns in business. We heard from in-house human rights experts how the debate over the last 15 years had moved beyond a vague concept to which lip service had been paid to become a bona fide business consideration, combining legal liability with potentially devastating reputational risk.
Continue reading “The business and human rights debate: The new judges”
The launch party for our second GC Powerlist Ireland, this time focusing on teams, brought together the country’s strongest in-house legal departments
The recent launch of our GC Powerlist: Ireland Teams, hosted in Dublin by McCann FitzGerald, was attended by a host of companies operating in the country including Ulster Bank, Facebook, EY, An Post and Ryanair. The following pages list the in-house legal teams that made the list.
Linklaters has reshuffled the leadership of its corporate team, moving a number of key roles down to rising stars following changes to senior management in the department. Continue reading “‘The next generation’: Linklaters appoints new corporate group heads as Comiskey takes charge”
A group of claimants has landed its first blow in an article 50 case against the government, after the High Court ruled that it has no constitutional power to trigger Brexit.
Continue reading “Mishcon succeeds as claimants win Brexit challenge against government”
There is little space at the top among the elite M&A dealmakers, but as of October there is a vacancy for another heavyweight as Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Mark Rawlinson departed Fleet Street for investment bank Morgan Stanley.
After 34 years at Freshfields, Rawlinson ended his time with a run of headline deals ensuring that he went out on a high. It capped an ultra-exclusive standing for Rawlinson, established alongside Slaughter and May’s Nigel Boardman, as one of the City’s top deal advisers at an age when even the most driven partners are usually losing a yard.
