Links, A&O and HSF win roles on Sabadell’s £1.7bn TSB takeover

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Less than a year after Lloyds floated TSB Bank, Linklaters, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) all secured instructions on its high-profile takeover by Spain’s Banco Sabadell.

Taxpayer-backed lender Lloyds Banking Group formalised the 340p-a-share offer in March and agreed to sell its 50% stake in TSB. The deal values TSB, which is already the UK’s seventh-largest retail bank with 4.5 million customers, at £1.7bn.

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Cross-border £1.1bn Liberty Living deal sees raft of firms pick up mandates

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The trend of foreign money flowing into the UK real estate market continued last month. This time the investment came from Canada and saw a raft of Legal Business 100 and international law firms pick up advisory roles.

Nabarro, Clifford Chance (CC), Pinsent Masons, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Dechert and Canadian firm Stikeman Elliott won roles advising on the £1.1bn acquisition of UK student accommodation provider Liberty Living by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

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Deal watch: Corporate activity in March 2015

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CC, LINKLATERS AND LATHAM & WATKINS WIN KEY ROLES ON PIRELLI TAKEOVER

Advised by Clifford Chance (CC), China National Chemical Corporation bought tyre-maker Pirelli in a $7.7bn deal. The Chinese company acquired a 26.2% stake from Camfin, which was advised by Chiomenti, while Lombardi Molinari Segni handled financing aspects and Linklaters advised fellow investor Long Term Investments. Latham & Watkins advised underwriters JP Morgan.

 

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Latham halves its offices in the Middle East

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DWF picks Dubai for first international office and puts three-year growth plan in place

With just 35 lawyers spread across four offices, Latham & Watkins admitted last month it had made a mistake in how it launched in the Middle East in 2008, and told staff in Abu Dhabi and Doha that their offices will close by the end of the year with the firm using Dubai and Riyadh to service the region.

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Pinsents launches infra-focused Australia outpost

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After much speculation, Pinsent Masons announced the launch of an infrastructure sector-focused practice in Melbourne and Sydney last month, with a formal opening planned for July.

The five-partner operation will be headed up by David Rennick, a former chief executive of Australian firm Maddocks, who had been analysing the local market for Pinsents since March 2014. He will be joined by partners Greg Campbell and Simela Karasavidis, who also come from Maddocks; as well as Michael Battye, a former Pinsents lawyer who set up QED Legal, a construction boutique in Adelaide; and Andrew Denton, a construction disputes partner at Pinsents who will relocate from its London office.

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Life During Law – Kevin Ingram

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I fell into a career that suits me. I’ve done interesting things that kept me motivated and worked with intelligent, motivated people. I’ve never had a patch I didn’t enjoy.

I was the second person from my South Wales school to go to Oxford or Cambridge. All of the law firms at the time were recruiting heavily – nothing changes – I sent some printed CVs. It was quicker than filling in forms and Clifford Turner was one of them.

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Freshfields’ northshoring planned on radical scale as City leader repositions for changing law market

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Internal worries as firm’s new low-cost hub could affect up to 800 roles

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s decision to jump on the near-shoring wagon with its first low-cost services hub in Manchester is on a scale larger than its peers, with up to 800 support service jobs being transferred – a move which is unsettling some at its Fleet Street headquarters.

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Severn Trent sticks by Eversheds as sole adviser until 2020

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FTSE 100 water company Severn Trent has reappointed Eversheds as its sole adviser for a new five-year term, despite having strongly considered appointing at least two firms to its new roster.

The company’s review took proposals from a total of 13 firms across five different areas: debt recovery, employment, general quality regulation, property and combined competition/commercial economic regulation. The legal team at Severn Trent had originally planned to give the debt recovery mandate to a smaller, local firm because it didn’t have the volume of work to hand to a larger sole adviser. However several firms, including Eversheds, pitched for a single mandate.

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Linklaters suffers blow as US firms hire trio of leading partners

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Linklaters lost a trio of heavyweight partners in February with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and Kirkland & Ellis cherry-picking from the Magic Circle firm.

Milbank built out its projects practice with the hire of two leading projects partners from Linklaters’ London office, Matthew Hagopian and Manzer Ijaz, who count among their clients Glencore, BP and Eni.

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Barclays Investment Bank hires new global GC

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Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s co-chair of its financial institutions Mark Shelton is leaving the US firm to join Barclays Investment Bank as its global general counsel (GC) and the regional GC for the Americas.

He leaves private practice after one year to return to the world of in-house in which he has over ten years’ experience. He joined Gibson Dunn in February 2014 from UBS where he was GC and global head of investigation and Americas GC in New York for almost 11 years.

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