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The ESG report 2024
Beyond ‘nice to have’ – ESG goes business fundamental
‘In the old days, it was about having a nice brochure with some green pictures, but then getting on with the serious matter of running our business. We’ve moved way beyond that now – it’s a business fundamental now.’
Norton Rose Fulbright head of environment, health and safety, Europe, Middle East and Asia, Caroline May neatly sums up the transformative shift in attitudes in recent years, with law firms now more attuned than ever to the importance of ESG, both in their capacity as commercial advisers and in terms of their reputation as progressive employers. Continue reading “Beyond ‘nice to have’ – ESG goes business fundamental”
What Gen Z lawyers really want from their careers
Gen Z – including its lawyers – are often characterised as being overly concerned about the social and political issues that come under the ESG umbrella. It’s an issue that was discussed at Legal Business’s April Enterprise GC event in a panel called: ‘The ideal employer for an idealistic lawyer’, during which one audience member dismissed concerns in the somewhat facetious terms: ‘Everybody’s gone woke!’
The truth is – as always – more nuanced. While Gen Z lawyers do care about ESG issues, this does not mean there is a cultural clash between the generations, even if they are more vocal about their expectations than older generations may have been. Continue reading “What Gen Z lawyers really want from their careers”
Enterprise winners
On 29-30 April, more than 200 senior in-house counsel gathered at the Hilton London Wembley for the seventh annual Enterprise GC event.
The event – which was sponsored by Walker Morris, Luminance, Lex Mundi, SSQ, EY, Taylor Wessing, Trowers & Hamlins, Cilex, Flex Legal, Winston & Strawn, Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis – saw two packed days of dynamic sessions, panel discussions and networking, bringing together top in-house professionals and speakers from broader business and academic communities to discuss the evolving role of GCs. Continue reading “Enterprise winners”
M&A Yearbook 2024 – Ready for takeoff?
M&A Yearbook 2024 – online PDF
Please see below for a link to an online pdf of the M&A Yearbook 2024. Continue reading “M&A Yearbook 2024 – online PDF”
M&A Yearbook – Editor’s Letter
When M&A markets slowed down in the second half of 2022, the positive spin from dealmakers was that at least they got a little respite after the heady heights of the post-pandemic 2021 deal boom.
Cleared for departure – charting the course for deal optimism
‘There is hope that 2024 will be a year of recovery for the M&A market,’ says Gavin Davies, head of Herbert Smith Freehills’ global M&A practice.
Over at FTSE adviser stalwart Slaughter and May, the firm’s co-head of corporate and M&A, Richard Smith, agrees that the firm is ‘happy’ with the way 2024 has started but admits that things are ‘still quite fragile’.
Continue reading “Cleared for departure – charting the course for deal optimism”
Dialling in the deal – the inside track on the Vodafone/Three merger
Whatever metric you track, 2023 was a poor year for M&A. One bright spark amid the gloom was the proposed £15bn merger between Vodafone UK and Three UK, which was announced in summer 2023. If cleared by competition authorities, the deal will create the UK’s biggest mobile phone operator.
The transaction was one of the five largest announced UK M&A deals by value last year according to Dealogic data, seeing Vodafone and CK Hutchison – the Hong-Kong based owner of Three – announce their intention to combine both UK mobile arms.
Continue reading “Dialling in the deal – the inside track on the Vodafone/Three merger”
M&A perspectives: Melissa Fogarty
Why did you decide to become an M&A lawyer, and has it lived up to expectations?
M&A was the fourth seat of my training contract at King & Wood Mallesons. Until then, I was going to be a litigator.
I’ve always been swayed by people more than anything else. During my fourth seat I was supervised by the incredible Alison Lansley – a leading M&A partner in Australia. She is inspirational… and the decision to qualify in M&A was an easy one.