While some law firms claim to be all things to all clients, for almost a decade Simmons & Simmons has focused its efforts with increasing rigour on a select number of sectors. Given its unhappy period of drift as a generalist corporate finance player, recent years have delivered far better results. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in its particular take on financial services.
Its importance is reflected in the numbers. Currently the firm has 117 partners across its financial markets practice, 63 of which are in the UK, while 40% (around £150m) of firm-wide revenue comes from finance. Even here the firm has often avoided too much business-as-usual work for banking clients – a certain route to poor margins – to zero in on funds, asset managers and more esoteric areas of regulation.
Disputes – the firm’s second-largest contributor – provides 32%. Even there, Simmons is as likely to target finance-related disputes as general disputes.
‘We focus on our core sectors; asset funds; investment funds; financial institutions; banking and debt capital,’ international head of financial markets Jonathan Hammond notes.
‘The area I’m looking at now is the shape and size of our practice in continental Europe. Market demand means we need to grow.’
Jonathan Hammond, Simmons & Simmons
Acting for funds and banks sees Simmons exhibit rare strength on the buy and sell sides in the City. And, while longstanding relationships with institutions such as UBS continue to be fruitful, more recent developments have seen the client portfolio swell. The Senior Managers Certification Regime (SMCR) replaced the Approved Persons Regime in 2016, and brought about change to how those who work in financial services are regulated as a means to address issues inflamed by the banking crisis. ‘The SMCR really hits our sweet spot,’ says regulatory partner Penny Miller. ‘We have leading regulatory, employment and contentious regulatory teams, so it emphasises the strength of all those practices.’
The firm is currently acting on more than 100 SMCR matters, a range it argues that few rivals can match. Such mandates have helped the firm build a nine-partner non-contentious financial regulatory team, one of the largest of its kind in the City.
Despite such current resources, Simmons has been ready to recruit, with former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer structured finance partner James Grand joining the team in 2018, while banking partner James Taylor arrived from Paul Hastings earlier this year. Hammond expects further hires. ‘We have a pipeline of work in asset-backed finance which needs short-term team growth. We’re also looking at growth in tax in the next 12 months as well as continuing the growth of the regulatory team.’
Miller remains highly-rated within the team, with her work spanning core regulatory matters and more transactional mandates like recently advising LendInvest on the establishment of a £500m Euro Medium Term Note Programme. The finance practice also received a boost after being appointed to the Government’s Finance and Highly Complex Legal Advice panel in 2017, with the firm hoping for reappointment this summer.
The practice was further supported in 2018 with Simmonsʼ launch in Dublin, a move heavily targeted at Ireland’s booming funds sector, while a similar operation opened in Luxembourg in 2015. But partners agree more needs to be done to bolster the finance practice abroad, particularly in the context of uncertainty around Brexit. Around 30% of total firm revenue comes from continental Europe.
‘The area I’m looking at now is the shape and size of our practice in continental Europe,’ says Hammond. ‘We have good partners, including three new partners in Paris, but market demand means we need to grow more in those offices.’
Hammond concedes that the practice still has a weaker profile compared to Magic Circle competitors. But for Simmons, finding a particular slant on financial services has gone a long way to providing the clear positioning that the firm not so long ago appeared to have squandered for good.