Alex Novarese, Legal Business: How is the market generally?
Lee Ranson, Eversheds Sutherland: Most of the managing partners around this table will say it was a better 2017 than expected. We had some of our highest numbers against a budget where we were very, very wary with Brexit and uncertainty. Very strange. We are going into a new budget now and management is more cautious than the practitioners. Continue reading “An ill wind… The LB100 leadership debate”
Continue reading “Dealwatch: the Magic Circle players kicking off 2018”
As January draws to a close the deal market continues its robust run, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett leading the advisers on Blackstone’s headline-grabbing Thomson Reuters carve-out while City leaders deploy for Informa’s £3.9bn takeover of UBM.
Simpson, Dechert and Norton Rose Fulbright (NFR) won the lead mandates on a Blackstone-led bid to acquire the data analytics business of Thomson Reuters in a deal valued at $20bn. The bid, confirmed on Tuesday (30 January), is one of the largest ever private equity-backed acquisitions and Blackstone’s largest outside the real estate sector. Continue reading “Deal Watch: Simpson, CC and NRF line up as business data firms generates big ticket double”
Why would a partner quit an elite London law firm with decades of history, Rolls-Royce support and a superb client base for the uncertain prospects of the City arm of a US rival?
Money is the obvious answer and in a sector in which laterals regularly increase their compensation by 50-100%, that is obviously a big part of the equation. One Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer rainmaker is currently reported to be sitting on a $10m a year standing offer. Continue reading “The Departed”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s restructuring chief Ken Baird and finance partner Catherine Balmond led the team advising KPMG as Monarch Airlines filed for administration. Kirkland & Ellis and Reed Smith advised the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), while Stephenson Harwood acted for the Pension Protection Fund. Continue reading “Autumn dealwatch: Euro mega deals keep Magic Circle busy”
Madeleine Farman assesses the impact of another round of pay rises on the City market
As US firms continue to hike associate pay for UK lawyers, members of the City’s legal elite are getting increasingly coy over what they are offering their junior ranks… but are such tactics sustainable in the long run?
Magic Circle firms constitute four of the nine advisers appointed to the government’s new finance and complex legal services panel with seven law firms left out after a reboot of its legal services framework continues.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance are part of the new panel advising on matters including finance, refinancing, capital markets, corporate transactions, projects and regulation. Continue reading “‘Knowhow and track record’: Magic Circle dominates new panel as seven firms dropped in government legal services revamp”
Amid a simmering market for junior City lawyers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has opted to hold the line on associate salaries following a round of bumper increases in 2016.
Newly-qualified (NQ) solicitors at the Magic Circle firm currently earn £85,000. This rate was established last year when the City giant substantially overhauled its comp structure to hike base salaries from £67,500 to £85,000, a 26% rise. The increase included the rolling in of bonuses, though overall compensation was also increased.
Dramatic swings in foreign currencies against Brexit-battered sterling have lifted reported results from London’s big four, with double-digit growth rates for Allen & Overy (A&O), Clifford Chance (CC) and Linklaters. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s growth, however, has stalled in what has been a record year for the Magic Circle.
London’s top firms have been quietly retrenching for years in mainland Europe. As Brexit looms, where has that left the Magic Circle?
‘Welcome to Europe, the haven of legal certainty,’ quips Burkhart Goebel, Hogan Lovells’ managing partner for continental Europe. Continue reading “The Global 100: The European question – Have years of cuts left the Magic Circle exposed as Brexit looms?”
