Fresh from the news on Friday (28 February) that DLA Piper has hired three Berwin Leighton Paisner partners, Jones Day has added to its own tally of laterals from the firm by recruiting banking and capital markets partner Paul Simcock.
Simcock specialises in leveraged finance and has acted for private equity sponsors, senior and junior lenders, strategic investors and corporate borrowers on leveraged acquisitions.
He also advises on debt restructurings and other distressed transactions, as well as re-financings and other syndicated and bilateral lending. In 2012 he advised Intermediate Capital Group on the £125m secondary buyout of convenience food manufacturer Symington’s from Bridgepoint. Simcock previously worked closely with BLP alumni Andrew Bamber, an acquisition finance hire from Allen & Overy, who left the firm last year.
Simcock is Jones Day’s fourth partner hire from BLP since August 2013. Earlier this month BLP’s former head of restructuring, Ben Larkin followed in the footsteps of private equity partners Raymond McKeeve and Michael Weir, who left for Jones Day’s London office last year.
The hires come after the news on Friday that BLP’s head of real estate finance Laurence Rogers has joined DLA Piper alongside commercial real estate partner Richard Hopkinson-Woolley and corporate tax partner Neville Wright. Their hire follows the arrival in September of BLP corporate partner Patrick Somers, meaning that the top Global 100 firm has also hired four BLP partners in the space of around six months.
BLP also saw its head of employment Fraser Younson join Squire Sanders in December.
The departures follow BLP’s increase in H1 revenues of 6%, after 2012/13 saw the 786-lawyer firm’s turnover drop by 5% to £233m and its profit per equity partner fall by 39%.
However, signs of an improvement in the firm’s fortunes were overshadowed in January by the news that its bank borrowing has increased by over 220% from £14m to £45m.
David.stevenson@legalease.co.uk