Olswang‘s Paris head Guillaume Kessler has left the soon-to-be-merged firm in favour of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
The exit comes as Olswang prepares for its merger with CMS Cameron McKenna and Nabarro. The Paris office relocated to temporary premises after its lease expired, and is not expected to join the three way merger.
Kessler advises on corporate finance transactions, including public and private domestic and cross-border M&A, takeovers, take privates, private equity, restructurings and international joint ventures. He joined Olswang in 2011 from Brandford-Griffith & Associés where he was made up to partner in 2006. He had previously worked at both Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Clifford Chance.
Orrick’s head of M&A and private equity in France Saam Golshani said: ‘We are delighted to continue to grow our French corporate practice with a practitioner of Guillaume’s calibre. He is a recognised player in the French market, with particularly deep ties to the technology sector and a go-to source for the private equity market.’
CMS Cameron McKenna, Nabarro and Olswang partners approved the merger in October, with the three firms taking on the CMS brand – giving Camerons over 1,000 partners and revenues of around £450m in the UK. The three firms will move in together into CMS UK’s current Cannon Place headquarters, conditional on the merger completing on 1 May 2017.
In November Legal Business reported Olswang lost experienced Paris corporate partner Christophe Gaschin who joined Groupe Bertrand as general counsel. Nabarro lost its seat in the five firm Broadlaw Group as a consequence of its merger plans with CMS and Olswang.
