A firm more progressive than many in the City on gender diversity, Travers Smith has made up just one female partner in a four-strong promotion round that is significantly scaled back from last year.
The City stalwart made up half the number of new partners as in 2018, when eight new partners were promoted, of which three were women.
Although a significant reduction on partner promotions compared with last year, the four-strong round is equal to the number promoted in 2017, which was notable for being the year the firm announced its first all-female partner promotions round.
This years’ cohort relates to the dispute resolution, pensions, financial services and markets and corporate finance practice areas, with the promotions taking effect on 1 July 2019.
Managing partner David Patient (pictured) said: ‘The appointment of new partners is always one of the highlights of the year, and it’s great that we are, once again this year, able to promote such exceptional talent from our deep bench.’
Alexa Day has been promoted in the firm’s dispute resolution practice. She was recently part of team which worked on the successful defence of claims brought by the Tchenguiz brothers against Kaupthing, Jóhannes Jóhannsson and others. The claims were dropped by the claimants three days into what was set to be a 12-week trial.
Pensions partner Andy Lewis has also been promoted. He has experience advising clients with complex pensions projects and regulatory work including scheme reorganisations, liability management, benefit changes, difficult funding and debt settlements.
Lewis recently advised – alongside head of pensions Daniel Gerring – the Akzo Nobel (CPS) Pension Scheme in a sponsor negotiation, and advised another global corporate based in the USA on a restructuring and flexible apportionment arrangement in a key pension scheme. Other highlights include acting for Micro Focus International PLC on the global pensions aspects of the $2.5bn sale of its SUSE Linux business and advising Ancala Partners on pensions in its acquisition of Portsmouth Water.
Michael Raymond has been promoted in the financial services and markets team having gained experience advising asset managers on regulatory issues including market conduct in the credit markets, securitisation risk retention rules and regulatory capital requirements for investment firms and alternative investment fund managers.
Finally, the firm promoted corporate lawyer Jonathan Walters, who advises clients on public and private M&A, joint ventures and equity capital markets with a particular focus on the infrastructure sector. He recently acted for Arjun Infrastructure Partners on the acquisition of two combined heat and power plants in the UK and Ancala Partners on several transactions including on the acquisitions of Portsmouth Water and an interest in the Scottish Area Gas Evacuation System (SAGE).