Banking partner Nigel Ward is to remain at Ashurst after it was announced earlier this month he was to make a move to Paul Hastings.
In a rare turnaround, Ward has chosen to stay with the firm’s finance team. The Legal 500 cites him as a leading individual with experience in recapitalisation, restructurings and IPO crossover financing.
Ashurst chairman Ben Tidswell said he was ‘delighted’ Ward had chosen to remain at the firm, adding the decision ‘reflects Nigel’s deep relationships across our strong international platform and the confidence we all have about the opportunities for the firm going forward’.
A spokesperson for Paul Hastings said: ‘For reasons that must remain confidential, regrettably Nigel Ward’s move to Paul Hastings could not proceed. We wish him well.’
Ashurst also announced today (27 September) it has appointed infrastructure partner Vincent Casey to its New York office from Nixon Peabody. Casey acts for a broad base of clients across the infrastructure market, including in the transport, water, social infrastructure, airport and renewable energy sectors. He joins former Allen & Overy (A&O) banking partner Andrew Fraiser, who was appointed in July to head up the team.
Fraiser commented: ‘As a firm that has infrastructure as a strategic priority for its global business, I believe that there is a unique opportunity for us to become New York’s leading firm covering infrastructure across the Americas.’
However, the revolving door continues to turn at the Anglo-Australian firm: another member of its US team, energy partner Charles William, is leaving the firm to launch his own boutique. Williams, who advises on all aspects of the development, financing, acquisition and disposal of energy and infrastructure projects, joined the firm’s New York office from A&O in 2013.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
Ashurst has lost another office head with its long term Brussels managing partner leaving the firm in favour of Simmons & Simmons, along with one counsel.
Brussels managing partner Carl Meyntjens joined the firm as partner in 1998 from legacy Linklaters & Paines and has managed the firm’s Brussels office since 2007. An all-rounder, Meyntjens has wide corporate and finance experience, specialising in M&A and private equity.
Meyntjens will be joined by corporate counsel Kelly Cherrette who joined the firm as an associate in 2002 before moving up to counsel in 2010.
Head of the Simmons’ Brussels office Koen Platteau said: ‘This is a stellar team with a widely renowned reputation and expertise in local and cross-border transactions, both in Belgium and abroad. Their combined expertise complements that of our existing team and enhances our Benelux and European offering in corporate and finance for our clients.’
Meanwhile, Ashurst has rejigged its Brussels practice announcing competition and EU law partner Denis Fosselard will take up a newly created head of Brussels role, with banking and finance partner Arnaud Wtterwulghe replacing Meyntjens as office managing partner.
The firm expects the new management team to ‘significantly enhance our business, strengthen our offering and maximise opportunities’, a spokesperson said.
Meyntjens and Cherrette are the latest exits with the firm’s Abu Dhabi head Alastair Holland left for New York-based Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, its Singapore head Shaun Lascelles leaving with fellow corporate partner Keith McGuire leaving in favour of PwC Legal.
Paul Hastings has also taken a structured finance trio and heavyweight finance partner Nigel Ward, Allen & Overy has taken two Asia finance partners and Latham & Watkins added regulatory partner Nicola Higgs to its ranks.
The firm’s management team chairman Ben Tidswell and new managing partner Paul Jenkins told Legal Business they had managed out partners as they re-evaluated the direction of the firm following its merger with Blake Dawson but refused to say how many.
Around 45 partners have left the firm since May last year with the firm announcing a 19% drop in profit per equity partner with figures dwindling to £603,000 from £747,000 for the 2015/16 financial year. Ashurst has also seen a 10% drop in turnover to £505m.
Following the disappointing results, Ashurst delayed its quarterly partner distributions for August, with one former partner telling Legal Business it was the second delayed payment this year after a postponement in February.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
In a week which saw multiple departures from Ashurst, the firm sought to reverse the trend with a hire in its German tax practice, while DLA Piper and Shoosmiths made national hires and White & Case bulked up in London.
Ashurst has hired partner Martin Bünning from Jones Day in Frankfurt, where he was a partner since 2011. His practice focuses on tax advice for investors in real estate and other alternative investments, as well as on tax structures for open-ended and closed funds.
Commenting on the hire, Tobias Krug, managing partner of Ashurst in Germany said: ‘Martin Bünning is exceptionally experienced in advising on the tax aspects of national and cross-border real estate, private equity and corporate transactions. He is ideally suited to Ashurst given the firm’s strength in these areas and we are confident he will make a significant contribution to the team.’
Meanwhile Shoosmiths boosted its national regulatory practice with the appointment of two partners, Roy Tozer in Birmingham and Charles Arrand in Milton Keynes from DLA Piper.
Arrand was also previously at Pinsent Masons and has experience in advising both individuals and well-known brands on a range of regulatory issues including investigations and prosecutions in relation to regulatory offences while Tozer has been involved in high-profile health, safety and environmental cases as well as multi-jurisdictional product liability cases.
Stuart Little, commercial practice group head at Shoosmiths, commented: ‘The addition of Roy and Charles’ expertise will further grow our highly successful regulatory practice, allowing all our clients to benefit from first class regulatory and compliance advice alongside our award winning client experience.’
DLA has also made a hire in Birmingham, strengthening its real estate team with the appointment of Monique Sutherland from Squire Patton Boggs. Sutherland has been involved in a number of landmark developments in the Midlands including Paradise Circus.
In London, White & Case expanded its global tax practice with the addition of Michael Wistow as co-head of the firm’s tax practice in EMEA from Berwin Leighton Paisner. His practice is focused on corporate, finance and real estate industry-based transactions and clients, including real estate finance, property and debt funds, securitisation, leasing and structured financings and corporate
The firm’s London office executive partner Oliver Brettle said: ‘With our recent expansion across our practices in London, and continued focus on profitable growth, we believe a larger tax team is appropriate and necessary here in London. The team will continue to focus on both high value tax advice-driven mandates and supporting our transactional practices. Our tax lawyers will play a particularly strategic role in the ongoing development of our real estate, private equity, finance and infrastructure industry practices.’
kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk
Ashurst‘s Singapore managing partner is the latest to quit the firm, in a day where Ashurst has seen partner exits to Jones Day, Allen & Overy, Paul Hastings and PwC Legal.
Shaun Lascelles will depart Ashurst, having joined the City firm in 2015. He moved from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom where he co-headed its global private equity practice in August 2015. With a particular focus in M&A and private equity, Lascelles advises a broad range of private equity firms, hedge funds, state-owned investment funds and other investment funds.
Earlier today, Paul Hastings confirmed it had appointed respected finance partner Nigel Ward from the beleaguered firm, while the firm’s Abu Dhabi head Alastair Holland has quit for a US firm and two Asia finance partners, including Ashurst’s Hong Kong managing partner have joined Allen & Overy.
As well as losing Lascelles, Ashurst has also lost corporate partner Keith McGuire from its Singapore office. He joins PwC Legal.
The latest spike brings the number of partners that have left the firm to around 45 since May of last year as the firm posted a disappointing 19% drop in profit per equity partner down to £603,000 from £747,000 during the 2015/16 financial year as well as a 10% drop in turnover to £505m.
Following this Ashurst has made plans to extend the firm’s lockstep ladder to 75 points up on the firm’s current 65 to help retain talent at the firm. Under the current proposals, which are yet to be voted on, the bottom of the ladder will remain at its current 25.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
Read more on Ashurst in the comment piece: ‘Looking forward to Ashurst’s decline – The outlook worsens for a proud City institution’ and the analysis piece: ‘Don’t look back in anger: Ashurst leadership tries to rally partners but the drift continues’
Paul Hastings has continued to strengthen its burgeoning City practice with yet another high-profile lateral hire, this time taking respected finance partner Nigel Ward from a beleaguered Ashurst.
Ward is a heavyweight UK banking lawyer, cited as a leading individual in The Legal 500 for acquisition finance with experience in recapitalisation, restructurings and IPO crossover financing.
His departure is the latest blow for Ashust, with three further partner exits announced today. Paul Hastings alone has repeatedly targeted Ashurst in the past 18 months for lateral hires. The US firm took on US managing partner Eugene Ferrer and global co-head of securities and derivatives Scott Faga, along with three counsel and four associates last July.
The firm also hired Ashurst banking partner Luke McDougall in June 2015. Earlier this month, Paul Hastings again turned to Ashurst for another three finance partners, taking on Michael Smith, Diala Minott and Cameron Saylor.
Paul Hastings London chair Ronan O’Sullivan said: ‘Nigel is one of the most respected lawyers in the London market and his arrival adds significantly to our strength on both sides of the Atlantic.’
For Paul Hastings in London, this is the latest in a string of high-profile lateral hires that began more than a year ago and includes Paul Severs and Duncan Woollard from King & Wood Mallesons, as well as restructuring veteran David Ereira from Linklaters. Those hires came during a record year for the Global 100 firm, in which it bucked the slowdown in the US legal market by posting record profits, as turnover grew 6% to $1.06bn.
Commenting on Ward’s departure, an Ashurst spokesperson said: ‘We have one of the most long-standing leveraged and acquisition finance teams in the City and our rising stars add to our acknowledged bench strength.’
matthew.field@legalease.co.uk
The exits continue at Ashurst as the firm’s Abu Dhabi head has quit for a US firm while two Asia finance partners, including Ashurst’s Hong Kong managing partner have joined Allen & Overy (A&O).
New York-based Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle has lured Ashurst’s head of Abu Dhabi, the latest in an increasing tally of exits.
Training and qualifying in Ashurst’s London office, M&A partner Alastair Holland spent two years in the firm’s Frankfurt office before moving to the Middle East in 2008.
Holland described his new firm as ‘one to watch’ in Dubai and said he was looking forward to working with a team that has a ‘strong corporate core in the Middle East’.
Managing partner of Curtis’ Dubai offering Bruce Palmer added: ‘Alastair is well regarded in the Middle East and is widely admired for his strategic advice on corporate commercial matters. We have high hopes for him and are pleased to welcome yet more talent to our busy office.’
Meanwhile, A&O has secured two partners from Ashurst’s Hong Kong office, hiring Lina Lee and Jonathan Hsui who will join the firm’s capital markets team.
Lee has been a partner in the corporate group at Ashurst since 2009, while Hsui was made up to partner in 2013 after he joined the firm as counsel in 2011.
The hires followed continued growth for A&O in Hong Kong, with financial services and regulatory partner Charlotte Robins joining from Norton Rose Fulbright and debt capital markets partner Alex Tao joining from Davis Polk & Wardwell. The firm has also announced partner Stephen Miller will relocate from London to the office later this month to lead the firm’s Asia debt capital markets practice.
For Ashurst, the departures are the latest in a number of recent exits revealed this month with Paul Hastings picking up a trio of structured finance partners, Michael Smith, Diala Minott and Cameron Saylor, while Latham & Watkins appointed financial regulatory partner Nicola Higgs.
The latest spike brings the number of partners that have left the firm to around 40 since May of last year as the firm posted disappointing 19% drop in profit per equity partner down to £603,000 from £747,000 during the 2015/16 financial year as well as a 10% drop in turnover to £505m.
Following the disappointing results, Ashurst delayed its quarterly partner distributions for August, with one former partner telling Legal Business it was the second delayed payment this year after a postponement in February.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
Read more on Ashurst in the comment piece: ‘Looking forward to Ashurst’s decline – The outlook worsens for a proud City institution’ and the analysis piece: ‘Don’t look back in anger: Ashurst leadership tries to rally partners but the drift continues’
You cannot change the past. Move forward. Be constructive. Focus on making things better. Pick your cliché. And, like most clichés, they are built on the basis of common sense… and can still sometimes be beside the point.
Take Ashurst, which, having delivered a very poor 2015/16 trading period, is arguing once again that things will come good tomorrow. What else can leadership say? With Ashurst having been probably the worst-performing major City player since the banking crisis, such appeals are the only option.
But let us look back for a moment. The firm made a series of bold steps that have yet to demonstrably deliver, starting with the US launch back in 2009, including the Glasgow back-office move in 2013, but by far the most significant was the 2011 agreement to tie up with Australian practice Blake Dawson.
Five years since the Blake deal was announced to a bemused partnership, and three years since the pair moved to full integration, it has yet to prove its worth. In a wider sense, evidence is piling up that the many sceptics about City firms securing large Australia tie-ups have been proved right. The critics said Australia mergers came at the top of the cycle, that Asia-Pacific is a region beset by margin pressure and protectionist Bar rules, one in which Australia only has a limited integration with and that the national market is competitive and over-lawyered. That has all proved so.
The biggest advantage of an Australian union – that it bolsters income enough to help fund global expansion – has also been borne out, but comes at the cost of making the US a more difficult market for City firms to tackle, either organically or via mergers. This is particularly relevant in the case of Ashurst, which considered and rejected pushing for a deal with Sidley Austin around the time of the Blake deal.
Ashurst’s other issues have been just as clear. A continuing series of damaging partner losses over the last two years and clear indications that its corporate practice, the firm’s cultural heartland, is losing ground are also ominous. Equally as unsettling has been a sense that, after the election defeat of senior partner Charlie Geffen in 2013, Ashurst didn’t know what kind of firm it wanted to be. Geffen – a bold leader too fond of strategic handbrake turns – had clocked up a few missteps of his own, not least trying to push through Blake Dawson, Glasgow and a US merger in the same period.
Was Bain likely to solve that identity crisis? Such consultants have had a poor track record in the legal industry over the last 20 years. While you can see a case for a tightly-briefed £500,000-£1m consulting job, the supposed £4m price is an extraordinary, credibility-sapping figure for a firm of this size to commit for a debatable return.
The firm is now looking to trim costs and shake up the partnership yet again (Ashurst’s partnership has been through a destabilising amount of prodding and poking since 2008, so there will be much doubt about the prospects for that).The firm is also still poorly hedged in its practice mix.
There are those talking up new managing partner Paul Jenkins (pictured) but it’s hard to see the current leadership – including chair Ben Tidswell – having the capital to galvanise this business. Most likely Ashurst faces years more of gradual (or not so gradual) decline. For a firm with this much history, who wants to look forward to that?
alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk
Five years on from its controversial Australian combination – and after a punishing 2015/16 – the storied City firm is still far from finding the form it needs in a competitive global market
‘We had known that the firm had been struggling for a while but we didn’t know, and certainly weren’t expecting, a 20% decrease to our [profit per equity partner] PEP,’ a recent Ashurst leaver tells Legal Business.
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You cannot change the past. Move forward. Be constructive. Focus on making things better. Pick your cliché. And, like most clichés, they are built on the basis of common sense… and can still sometimes be beside the point.
Take Ashurst, which, having delivered a very poor 2015/16 trading period, is arguing once again that things will come good tomorrow. What else can leadership say? With Ashurst having been probably the worst-performing major City player since the banking crisis, such appeals are the only option.
You must be logged in to view full premium content.
