Taylor Wessing has moved to bolster its City buyout practice with the hire of a partner from Olswang in the latest in a string of departures from the City media and entertainment specialist.
Duncan McDonald joins Taylor Wessing’s City corporate team, bringing the number of lawyers covering private equity in London for the firm to 20. McDonald spent eight years at Olswang and has previously advised clients including Better Capital, Chamonix Private Equity and Sony.
Before joining Olswang, McDonald spent 18 months as general counsel for Citigroup Capital UK and was previously a partner at Pinsent Masons.
Taylor Wessing head of private equity James Goold said McDonald’s arrival would ‘consolidate our position in the UK and international private equity mid-market’.
Olswang has seen a number of partner exits in the last 18 months, with international telecommunications head Purvi Parekh leaving the firm earlier in the summer. Corporate partner Barry Stimpson also left in July to join Bond Dickinson. Stimpson worked with investment funds and private equity and has been retained as a consultant by Olswang despite his new role at Bond Dickinson.
The top 40 UK firm has seen a dip in revenues, falling 11% to £112.5m for 2015/16, the sharpest fall this year in the LB100, a fall linked to the departure last summer of a large team which moved to US practice Greenberg Traurig to launch a Berlin practice. The annual report showed Olswang had also lost 14 partners in that year to leave it a 100-partner firm.
In contrast, Taylor Wessing has been a consistent financial performer in recent years, with the Anglo-German law firm seeing revenues up 32% over the last five years to £254.5m.
matthew.field@legalease.co.uk
For more on Taylor Wessing, see ‘No more Taylor Who?’ to see our analysis in the September edition (£)
