By the time you read this Dentons (as anyone sane will call it), a three-way merger between SNR Denton, Salans and Fraser Milner Casgrain, should be formally approved (see opposite). That is unless there’s a late spanner in the works, and with merger negotiations you can never be sure.
On paper the union will create a $1bn business, level with Sullivan & Cromwell in the Global 100. But whether Dentons will ever constitute more than the mere sum of its parts is the real question.
Certainly the two main protagonists, SNR Denton and Salans, have had their problems recently, leading to the suggestion that the two are huddling together to escape the icy chill of the global downturn. But in some ways that may not be a bad thing – it helps to address a number of the issues that have appeared. The merger will be novel as it will be the first between a firm with a significant US presence and a Canadian firm. This fact alone will make Dentons unique among the Global 100, at least until the merger between Norton Rose and Fulbright & Jaworski goes live in June.
SNR Denton has performed well in the US and in some sense has done the hard part first: achieving a transatlantic merger. The addition of Salans and FMC gives SNR Denton added strength in critical markets – Canada through FMC and certain parts of Europe through Salans, particularly France and Central and Eastern Europe. SNR Denton’s EMEA practice posted better financials in 2011/12 but the addition of Salans in markets such as Russia should help make the firm more competitive.
For Salans, it’s been a rough year. Its alliance with Pinsent Masons fizzled out, then its London office was raided by a number of firms, and rivals in Asia reduced its China practice to cinders. But by joining forces with SNR Denton, many of those problems are eradicated on a superficial level. SNR Denton can offer credible London and Asia operations as well as the clear attractions of an established US practice.
The biggest challenge Dentons faces is establishing true cohesion between the disparate parts of the firm.
The biggest challenge Dentons faces is establishing true cohesion between
the disparate parts of the firm that will be pulled together using the Swiss Verein structure. Effectively the new entity will be four firms in one, as the
US and EMEA halves of SNR Denton are still in the early stages of their relationship.
The firm has certainly set off on the right foot, making it clear in the press statement announcing the merger that Dentons will be truly ‘polycentric’, with ‘no headquarters or dominant national culture’. This cultural policy is lifted straight from Salans’ playbook, with the firm previously making the same point in profiles in The Legal 500. However, there’s no such thing as a merger of equals, and a look at the configuration of the proposed management board and the size and revenues of the constituent firms shows that SNR Denton is clearly in the driving seat.
The question is where it will take it. Dentons will need to find a way to package the strengths of each firm and present that as a cohesive whole to clients, showing them how the combined offering gives the new firm a USP in servicing certain industry sectors. That will be a challenge and a half.