Legal Business

Ashurst corporate partner Nigel Stacey quits for Gibson Dunn’s City office

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment AshurstGibson, Dunn & Crutcher
legal-business-default

Ashurst’s corporate partner Nigel Stacey has quit the firm to join the London office of Los Angeles-founded firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Stacey, who focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and general corporate matters, follows in the footsteps of fellow corporate partner Jonathan Earle, who left Ashurst in April after being with the firm for 16 years.

Stacey regularly advises UK and international corporations and investment banks on corporate transactions, including cross-border and domestic M&A, public company takeovers, joint ventures and equity capital markets matters. Stacey joined Ashurst in 1999, having previously worked at Slaughter and May from 1994.

Gibson Dunn chairman Kenneth Doran said: ‘Building our London office is a key part of the firm’s strategy. Nigel is a talented and versatile lawyer with experience in a broad range of corporate transactions. His addition will further enhance the scale and depth of our transactional practice in this important market.’

Stacey added: ‘Gibson Dunn’s strong corporate and litigation platforms and strategically located offices drew me to the firm. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues in London and across the firm’s offices.’

Stacey and Earle’s departure from Ashurst’s corporate practice follow in the footsteps of former global head of corporate, commercial and competition Stephen Lloyd and private equity specialist Karan Dinamani, who both resigned to join Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy.

jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Ashurst on board with diversity targets of 40% female partner promotions and 25% partner ratio

Posted on |
Gender diversity Ashurst
legal-business-default

Ashurst has become the latest firm to introduce gender diversity targets, committing to promote a greater percentage of female associates to partner, with a further goal that 25% of equity partners will be female by May 2018.

The UK firm, which currently has a female partnership ratio close to 20%, has committed to ensuring 40% of its annual partner promotions are women.

The firm is setting up an international advisory group led by managing partner James Collis, who is accountable to the top 20 firm’s board for the delivery of the new objectives. The new approach to governance will involve consultation, regional training and individual objectives under a scheme Collis calls ‘diversity as normal’.

A statement from the firm said today: ‘The new approach will see active engagement of divisions and office heads and the setting of specific objectives and priorities, with a renewed focus on transparency in reporting.’

The firm is now targeting a minimum of 25% of management positions to be held by women by 2018.

Collis said achieving the target ‘is a key management objective for me’ and will ‘deliver increased levels of innovation, greater productivity and improved staff engagement and client service’.

He added: ‘We are proud of the diverse array of talent and expertise we already have at Ashurst but there is far more we need to do to build on this. We still have more progress to make in terms of our broader diversity and inclusion agenda. We are fully committed to improving and delivering on our gender diversity targets.’

Following initiatives, such as the 30% Club’s drive to boost female representation on UK boards, other firms to have set similar targets include Pinsent Masons, Hogan Lovells and Eversheds, which are all targeting a 30% female partnership. Baker & McKenzie last year announced its plan to double its female partnership to 30% and Herbert Smith Freehills plans to hit the same target by 2019. In 2011, the Davies Report called for strong action from UK companies to redress gender imbalance on UK boards, suggesting that they should aim for a target of 25% female representation by 2015.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Associate pay – Ashurst ups salaries for trainees and NQs

Posted on |
Salaries Ashurst
legal-business-default

Ashurst has upped its salaries for London-based trainees and newly-qualified lawyers (NQs) after a two-year freeze on pay.

First-year and second-year trainees will take home £1,000 more, up from £38,000 and £43,000 respectively, from levels set in 2012.Newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers will receive a slightly larger increase, up to £63,000 from £61,000.

The increases are the first post-merger salary changes the firm has made since its combination with legacy firm Blake Dawson in November 2013.

However, Ashurst confirmed its spot rates for lawyers of one, two and three year’s post-qualification experience (PQE) will remain static, having gone up in 2013.

Last year, the firm increased one year PQE salaries to £69,000, up £2,000 from the previous year, and two year PQE wages from £74,000 to £77,000. Three year PQE’s received £85,000.

A spokesperson at the firm said: ‘We are fully committed to attracting and retaining the best quality graduates and ensuring that remuneration is competitive, as this year’s increases demonstrate.’

The firm’s salary increases follow US firm’s Shearman & Sterling’s announcement earlier this week that it will boost pay levels across the firm’s three-tier merit based system by up to 6.4%; Allen & Overy’s decision to hold trainee and NQ lawyers’ pay at 2013 levels, while Linklaters unveiled pay increases for all its associates and trainees.

jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Asia: Ashurst bolsters Singapore with W&C hire; DLA appoints Asia corporate head; Fenwick & West opens in Shanghai

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment AshurstDLA PiperFenwick & West
legal-business-default

The Asian market has over the past week seen investment from international law firms including DLA Piper, Fenwick & West and Ashurst, which most recently bolstered its finance practices in both Singapore and Hong Kong.

Ashurst this week hired White & Case finance partner Kate Allchurch in Singapore, as it relocated London-based finance partner Chris Tang and Sydney-based Doos Choi to Hong Kong.

Allchurch joins from White & Case’s Singapore office, which she relocated to from London in 2009. She specialises in acquisition finance, structured lending, asset-backed lending, debt buy-backs, telecoms finance, restructuring and secondary debt market transactions. Her arrival brings Ashurst’s Singapore office up to three banking partners, as well as two project finance partners.

‘Kate is a highly experienced lawyer with strong international experience and a great reputation for her work in South East Asia’s emerging markets, particularly Indonesia. Her arrival complements our existing finance practice, which already has a very strong position in Indonesia and other South East Asia-related work,’ said Matthew Bubb, Asia managing partner of the firm.

Ashurst’s Hong Kong office now has four banking partners as Doos Choi and Chris Tang join fellow partners Matthias Schemuth and Dominic Gregory. Choi specialises in acquisition finance, and investment grade and sub-investment grade corporate finance. Tang, meanwhile, is a specialist in derivatives and structured finance products.

‘Through a combination of targeted lateral hires and the relocation of some of our brightest international talents to the region we have built a very strong team across Asia, offering a full range of services in relation to bank lending, structured products, derivatives, restructuring and investment banking services, as well as dedicated banking litigation and regulatory coverage,’ said Paul Jenkins, co-global head of the firm’s finance division.

Elsewhere, DLA Piper has regrouped after a four-lawyer team that included Asia corporate head Mabel Lui left for US firm Winston & Strawn earlier this month. The firm has appointed US M&A partner Paul Chen as its new head of corporate for Asia, with Chen relocating from DLA’s Silicon Valley office to Hong Kong in June.

Chen has previous experience in the role as he was Hong Kong managing partner for the now defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf. His experience includes advising corporates and private equity funds on a mix of transactions including M&A, capital raising, investments, joint ventures, leveraged buyouts and divestitures, with a particular focus on insurance clients.

Chen’s appointment follows on from DLA’s decision last year to boost the number of US partners in Asia. The firm set up a US-led, three-partner Asia management committee in December to develop more synergies between its US and Asia offices.

Meanwhile, US technology and life sciences firm Fenwick & West has opened a representative office in Shanghai. The office will be led by partner Eva Wang, who joined the firm last year, along with four associates. Wang’s clients include US and China-based venture capital funds that invest in China, emerging growth companies based in China and the US and public companies based in China and listed on the US and Hong Kong stock markets.

Wang’s pre-Fenwick & West experience includes acting as general counsel at Spreadtrum Communications during its initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock market in 2007.

‘In response to increasing work for technology and life sciences clients based in China as well as U.S. companies doing business in China, we’re making additional investments including recruiting lateral partner Eva Wang a year ago, and now, opening an office in Shanghai and expanding the team to 20 attorneys, including those who reside in the firm’s US offices,’ said Richard Dickson, chairman of the firm.

David.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Loss and gain: Ashurst loses City corporate partner as KWM finance partner joins in Sydney

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment AshurstKing & Wood Mallesons
legal-business-default

Ashurst yesterday (12 May) saw both sides of the lateral hiring coin as it announced the hire in Sydney of King & Wood Mallesons finance partner Jennifer Schlosser but lost London corporate partner Fabio Pizzoccheri, who has left the firm to launch Grimaldi Studio Legale’s (GSL’s) new City office.

GSL’s launch comes as the Italian firm identified the need to grow in London and bridge the gap between Europe and Italy. Pizzoccheri will lead the new office, which will focus on the corporate and financial markets, offering services to international law firms that do not have an Italian offering. The firm will also offer services to financial institutions, funds and multinational group, as well as its existing clients in Milan, Rome and Brussels.

Pizzoccheri, a former Dewey & LeBoeuf partner who joined Ashurst in 2010, specialising in financial services, capital markets and corporate, said the firm does not plan to grow its City headcount in the short-term, commenting: ‘These days firms need to be careful in terms of cost.’

Pizzoccheri will at GSL be joining former colleagues from Dewey including partners Stefano Speroni, Davide Contini and Angelo Zambelli who all, amongst others, joined the firm after Dewey & LeBoeuf went bankrupt in 2012.

GSL currently has around 100 fee-earners across its Rome, Milan and Brussels offices and provides M&A, private equity, tax, financial, litigation and competition advisory services.

CEO of the firm Vittorio Grimaldi said: ‘Our goal of expansion and internationalisation was bound to lead to the opening of a new office in London. The office will be lead by our new partner Fabio Pizzoccheri and we are certain that it will soon grow further with the addition of other high calibre professionals.’

Meanwhile, Ashurst revealed yesterday that it has hired finance partner Jennifer Schlosser in its Sydney office from King & Wood Mallesons.

Schlosser specialises in securitisation and structured debt capital markets, and is involved with the Australian Securitisation Forum, and has international banking and finance experience from working in Canada, Germany and the UK.

Ashurst vice-chairman Mary Padbury said: ‘Our panel relationships and continuing work with Australia’s four major banks and the global focus of the firm on the financial services sector has created significant opportunities within our finance practice. Through targeted lateral hires such as Jennifer’s and internal promotions to partnership of some of our brightest legal minds, we are continuing to build on the strength and depth of talent in our finance practice to the ultimate benefit of our clients.’

Global co-head of Ashurst’s finance practice Paul Jenkins added: ‘Her [Schlosser’s] extensive experience in securitisation and structured finance – primarily acting for originators, financiers and arrangers in public and private domestic and offshore transactions – will be of enormous benefit to our practice.’

Legal Business

Life during law: Helen Burton

Posted on |
Life During Law Ashurst
legal-business-default

The first deal I worked on when I qualified at Allen & Overy (A&O) was for David Morley and everything went wrong. On the Monday morning, I went to his office and he saw the look on my face and said: ‘Helen, don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.’ I turned around and walked out, but that stayed with me. The job of a lawyer is not to bring problems but to find solutions.

Legal Business

Ashurst loses further City corporate partner as Jonathan Earle joins Gibson Dunn

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment AshurstGibson, Dunn & Crutcher
legal-business-default

Jonathan Earle has become the latest Ashurst corporate partner to quit the top 20 firm, leaving after 16 years to join US firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s City corporate practice.

Earle joined Ashurst in 1998 and became a corporate partner in 2008. He has experience of advising corporates, banks and financial institutions and specialises in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, with a particular focus on public M&A. Recent big mandates for Ashurst include representing Interserve on its acquisition of Rentokil’s facilities management business for £250m, and advising William Hill on its public bid for Sportingbet.

Earle will continue his corporate practice, focusing on cross-border mergers and acquisitions in his new role. His start date at the US firm is yet to be confirmed but Earle told Legal Business that after 16 years at Ashurst it was time for a new challenge.

‘I’m delighted to be joining Gibson Dunn and am looking forward to working with my new colleagues,’ said Earle. ‘The firm has a pre-eminent corporate practice, and its international platform will help me to grow my cross-border M&A practice in the future.’

Gibson’s co-chair of the global finance practice Tom Budd said: ‘Jonathan is a terrific addition to the firm. His cross-border M&A focus will complement our London and US corporate practices, and his energy, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit will be an easy cultural fit with the firm.’

A spokesperson at Ashurst added: ‘Jon has made a significant contribution to the corporate practice in the last 16 years. He is a talented and dedicated partner and great fun to work with. We will be sorry to see him go but we wish him the very best for the future.’

Earle is the latest in a series of departures from the Ashurst’s corporate practice, following on from the resignation of high profile private equity specialist Karan Dinamani who left the firm in March this year, to join Allen & Overy in the footsteps of former global head of corporate, commercial and competition Stephen Lloyd, who resigned within weeks of the firm fully integrating with Australian partner Blake Dawson and post-merger management elections. Lloyd joined A&O as co-head of its private equity practice in November.

jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

First post-merger partnership round for Ashurst sees 15 promoted

Posted on |
Partnership promotions Ashurst
legal-business-default

Ashurst has announced its first partner promotions since its merger with Blake Dawson went live in October last year, with 15 lawyers joining its partnership ranks, up from a pre-merger figure of twelve.

Five lawyers were made up across the top 20 firm’s banking practice, followed by four in securities and derivatives and one each in its competition, corporate, employment, energy, dispute resolution and real estate practices.

Geographically the UK claimed the majority of promotions by a whisker, with five City promotions, followed by four in Australia, two in Spain and one each in France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and the US.

Ashurst has promoted a total of five female lawyers in this latest round, a significant improvement on last year when just one was promoted.

The appointments, representing 3.6% of Ashurst’s current total partnership numbers, will bring the number of partners to 433. All partner promotions will come into effect from 1 May 2014.

Ashurst vice-chairman Mary Padbury said: ‘These newest additions to our partnership already have an exceptional track record in client service and delivering excellence. The fact that a third of our new partners are female is also encouraging. We are committed to recognising and rewarding the high performance of our people and congratulate them all on their achievement.’

 

Ashurst’s new partners in full:

London:

Mark Edwards – Banking

Luke McDougall – Banking

Adair Gordon-Orr – Securities and Derivatives

Diala Minott – Securities and Derivatives

Henry Moss – Real Estate

Sydney:

Nicole Gardner – Dispute Resolution

Corey McHattan – Securities and Derivatives

Melbourne: Ken Nguyen – Banking

Canberra: Jon Lovell – Employment

Madrid:

Pedro Ester – corporate

Rafael Baena – competition

Paris: Stéphanie Vannier Corbière – banking

Frankfurt: Derk Opitz – banking

New York: Nicole Skalla – securities and derivatives

Abu Dhabi: Renad Younes – energy, resources and infrastructure

Legal Business

Hogan Lovells, CC, Simpson Thacher and Ashurst secure roles on Investindustrial’s €2bn sale of Avincis

Posted on |
Corporate AshurstClifford ChanceHogan LovellsSimpson Thacher & Bartlett
legal-business-default

Hogan Lovells and Clifford Chance (CC) have secured leading corporate roles on European investment group Investindustrial’s €2bn disposal of aerial service provider Avincis to Babcock International, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Ashurst also advising on the deal.

The Hogan Lovells team advising Investindustrial was led by private equity partner Ed Harris, with senior associates Leanne Moezi and David Harrison.

For former SJ Berwin partner Harris, who departed the firm prior to the merger with King & Wood Mallesons going live in early November, the deal is the corporate heavyweight’s first major mandate for Hogan Lovells since joining in the New Year.

Meanwhile, CC corporate partners Lee Coney and Caroline Sherrell advised Babcock International.

A team from Simpson Thacher advised Avincis’ stakeholder KKR, led by former CC corporate partner Adam Signy.

Ashurst advised JP Morgan Cazenove, Jefferies, Barclays and HSBC in relation to the £1.1bn rights issue by FTSE 100 engineering group Babcock International. The rights issue will be used to fund the acquisition of Avincis Group, a leading supplier of helicopter and fixed-wing services and helicopter services to the oil and gas industry. Leading the team was corporate partner Nicholas Holmes, who was assisted by senior associate Simon Bullock while corporate partner Jennifer Schneck advised on the US aspects of the transaction, assisted by senior associate Jeffrey Johnson. Australia-based senior associate Alex Eyre and associate Ben Langford also advised.

Holmes said: ‘We were delighted that these key banking clients turned to us for this high profile and significant transaction. Following our success in 2013, when we advised on more than a third of all main market IPOs in London, and the Kennedy Wilson IPO last month, which is one of the largest IPO capital raises of recent times, this deal is further evidence of the strength and profile of our equity capital markets practice.’

Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Onwards and upwards for Ashurst’s head of pensions who joins Eversheds 90-lawyer team

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment AshurstEversheds Sutherland
legal-business-default

Ashurst’s London head of pensions Steven Hull has jumped ship for Eversheds’ highly-rated 90-lawyer team, becoming the latest of a series of exits at the top 20 firm.

Hull joined Ashurst in 2005 from US Global 100 top 40 firm McDermott Will & Emery, where he headed the City pensions and employee benefits practice from its 2000 inception.  He will leave Ashurst on 20 March, joining Eversheds on 1 May.

Taking over Hull’s role as London pensions chief at Ashurst will be partner Marcus Fink, while Caroline Carter will continue in her role as head of the firm’s employment, incentives and pensions group, which has 20 partners internationally.

With over two and a half decades’ experience in pension-related matters, Hull’s expertise includes pension scheme reorganisations and mergers, deficit reduction strategies and scheme funding negotiations, changing and closing benefit structures, the pension aspects of corporate transactions and disputes involving the Pensions Regulator.

Commenting on his own appointment, Hull said: ‘I was attracted by the opportunity to join Eversheds due to its reputation in the market and its unrivalled capabilities in the pensions arena. I look forward to joining the team and working collaboratively to grow the practice.’

Eversheds’ head of pensions Francois Barker said: ‘Steven is a talented and highly capable lawyer who will complement our existing pensions practice as we continue to increase our mandates and cement our position as the genuine market leaders in all pensions related matters.’

Clients of Eversheds’ pensions team include Accenture, the BA pension schemes, Bombardier, DHL, DuPont, GE, John Lewis, National Grid, Severn Trent, Siemens, United Utilities, Vauxhall, Veolia and Volkswagen.

Ashurst has suffered a number of departures since ex-senior partner Charlie Geffen unexpectedly lost the chairman vote to litigator Ben Tidswell last October, most recently private equity partner Karan Dinamani, who joins former Ashurst corporate head Stephen Lloyd at Allen & Overy.

Francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk