Legal Business

Ashurst seeks competitive edge with second new lawyer salary increase of 2018

Posted on |
Salaries Ashurst

Ashurst has become the latest City firm to review its trainee and newly qualified (NQ) salaries for the second time this year, upping the latter’s basic pay to £82,000.

The changes, which take effect on 1 November, give NQs a £6,000 salary hike from the £76,000 given during the last review in May, while a performance-related bonus could bolster compensation to £94,300.

Meanwhile, one year qualified lawyers will take home £86,000, a £6,000 uptick, with a bonus yielding a total possible salary of £98,900. Two-year qualified lawyers will earn basic pay of £94,000, a £7,000 increase, and a bonus could increase compensation to £117,500.

London managing partner, Simon Beddow (pictured), attributed the pay rise to ‘a very strong start to the financial year… together with the desire to remain as competitive as possible’.

Ashurst’s revised pay means the firm only slightly lags the NQ rate of £83,000 offered by Allen & Overy and Linklaters, with the latter earlier this month also increasing its pay for the second time this year.

It is also higher than Slaughter and May’s £80,000 for NQs, while Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer pays NQs £85,000 and Clifford Chance in August increased NQ pay to £91,000, including bonuses.

In what was billed as a ‘strong performance globally’, Ashurst in June reported a 4% uptick in revenue for 2017/18 and sustained the 11% growth in profit per equity partner (PEP) achieved last year.

The firm’s revenue for the last financial year was £564m, up from £541m, while PEP stood at £743,000, compared with £672,000 in 2017. The results marked a second year of growth following two consecutive years of decline following the City stalwart’s merger with Australia’s Blake Dawson in 2013.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Ashurst sets sights on funds and Brexit fallout work with new Luxembourg arm

Posted on |
Europe Ashurst

Ashurst is targeting a significant uptick in its European funds offering, having received licence approval for a new Luxembourg office from the country’s Bar association.

Corporate partner Isabelle Lentz – currently head of its Luxembourg desk in London – will take the helm at the new outpost, which is set to open in October.

Legal Business

‘A difficult time’: Ashurst axes 54 City secretaries following redundancy review

Posted on |
Restructuring Ashurst

Ashurst has culled more than half of its secretarial staff in London as its redundancy review draws to a ‘difficult’ conclusion.

The firm confirmed on Wednesday (19 July) that 54 of its 100-strong secretarial team had been made redundant following a consultation which put 80 jobs at risk. Two secretarial roles in the Middle East have also been axed.

Ashurst launched the process in May, with women making up the vast majority of those in the firing line. Ashurst stated in its March 2018 gender pay gap report that 122 of its 125 secretarial staff – or 98% – are female.

When the redundancy drive launched, chief financial and operations officer Jan Gooze Zijl commented: ‘Responding to changing client needs, evolving technology, market efficiency drives and embracing new ways of working are strategic priorities for Ashurst. The way legal work is undertaken has changed considerably and we need an approach to service delivery that most effectively supports the practices and our business.’

At the time, the firm said its scaled back support function would be divided into three different types of role across the London and Glasgow offices.

This will include four team leaders and 37 practice executives responsible for practice management and business development, two more practice executive roles than originally stated.

The firm said 25 of its London executive assistants have accepted jobs as practice executives, with recruitment of the remaining 12 roles set to be concluded by the end of this month.

London and Glasgow will also be staffed by team executives and team assistants to undertake the more traditional administrative work. Of the 44 available roles, 14 have been filled internally, with recruitment nearly finished for the other remaining jobs.

Claire Townshend, Ashurst’s head of HR for EMEA and US, said: ‘We recognise that this has been a difficult time for those directly affected by the changes and we aimed to deal with the process sensitively, openly and respectfully for those impacted. We have been very grateful to our staff for being engaged and professional through this time and we thank them for this.’

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Ashurst taps Mayer Brown’s City office in disputes drive as White & Case adds Macfarlanes rising deal star Jones

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment AshurstWhite & Case

The City lateral market has kicked off after an uncharacteristic hiatus in recent weeks, seeing Ashurst recruit disputes partner Tom Duncan from Mayer Brown as Macfarlanes loses private equity rising star Emmie Jones to White & Case’s relentless hiring spree.

Macfarlanes-bred Jones, who featured in Legal Business’ analysis on the female City private equity players to watch in the mid-tier, was made up to partner in 2013. She has joined White & Case’s global M&A and private equity industry group as the firm sallies forth with its 2020 strategy, which includes going ‘toe-to-toe’ with the Magic Circle in London, led by erstwhile London executive partner Oliver Brettle.

Brettle, partner and member of the firm’s global executive committee, commented: ‘Our 2020 strategy includes a focus on profitable growth in London, in the global private equity industry and in mergers and acquisitions. The arrival of Emmie represents clear further progress in all three areas.’

John Reiss, head of White & Case’s global M&A practice, added: ‘The addition of Emmie sends a clear message to the market that we’re determined to continue growing our role advising the leading private equity firms and their portfolio companies on their most important, complex, cross-border matters.’

Jones has advised clients on the structuring, negotiation and execution of complex, cross-border private equity transactions across multiple sectors. She has totted up more than 150 deals, in both traditional private equity and advising portfolio companies, with a combined enterprise value of £10bn.

She has more than 13 years of experience advising private equity sponsors, corporates and management teams on acquisitions, disposals, management equity deals and distressed situations.

M&A partner John Cunningham said that Jones’ client relationships are an exciting fit with the firm’s client portfolio and the hire will play an important role in the ongoing institutionalisation and growth of the firm’s client base.

White & Case bolstered this same team as recently as March with the hire of former Jones Day partner Mike Weir. Jones is the seventh lateral in London so far this year, in addition to seven internal partner promotions in January.

City firm Ashurst, meanwhile, is upping its dispute resolution game in London with Tom Duncan, who has been a partner in Mayer Brown’s construction and engineering and international arbitration groups since 2012. He advises on all aspects of construction and engineering law with a focus on complex disputes. He has acted for clients in a number of different jurisdictions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia and has broad experience in arbitrations, adjudications and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.
This is the seventh dispute resolution partner hire for the firm this year, having recently appointed partners David Wilkinson and Alison Hardy in London, Emmanuelle Cabrol and Hortense de Roux in Paris, Nicolas Nohlen in Frankfurt and Melanie McKean in Canberra.

Simon Bromwich, head of Ashurst’s global dispute resolution practice, said: ‘Both in the UK and across our offices we are continuing to see high levels of infrastructure and construction disputes. These cases typically involve our growing and highly rated international arbitration team. I am confident that [Tom] will help our global team to capitalise further on the major opportunities in the market.’

Duncan added: ‘The strength of Ashurst’s credentials and client base in the infrastructure and construction sectors, together with its significant international network, provide an ideal basis to help develop Ashurst’s excellent disputes practice in those sectors. I have been impressed by the quality of the firm’s infrastructure and construction disputes capability and I am looking forward to working with the team.’

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Deal Watch: Rich pickings for Travers and Ashurst as US giants get busy on the continent

Posted on |
Corporate AshurstTravers Smith

It was a busy week for UK and US deal counsel as Travers Smith and Ashurst acted on multibillion-pound deals north of the channel and White & Case and Ropes & Gray landed key mandates in continental Europe.

Again acting well above its traditional mid-market territory, Travers advised IT company Micro Focus on the $2.5bn sale of open source software business SUSE to EQT Partners.

Head of corporate Spencer Summerfield led the Travers team, which also included corporate partners Jon Reddington and Mohammed Senouci.

Summerfield pointed to his firm’s history with the software business, having advised UK company Micro Focus when it initially bought SUSE in 2014 as part of the $2.3bn acquisition of The Attachmate Group. He commented: ‘This investment has generated substantial shareholder value and provided the SUSE business with a strong, long term investor to support its next phase of growth.’

Travers also fielded a team of specialists on the deal, including IP and tech partners Dan Reavill and James Longster, competition partner Stephen Whitfield, tax partners Simon Skinner and Madeline Gowlett, head of incentives and remuneration Mahesh Varia and real estate partner Paul Kenny.

The deal was another big mandate for Travers after longstanding client Bridgepoint recently instructed the UK firm on its £1.5bn sale of Pret A Manger.

A Latham & Watkins team led by finance partner Dominic Newcomb advised EQT alongside Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Completion of the deal is expected in the first quarter of next year.

Meanwhile, White & Case advised CVC Capital Partners in one of Italy’s largest ever private equity transactions: the €3bn acquisition of Italian drugmaker Recordati from the family of the company’s founders.

White & Case’s Milan office founder Michael Immordino acted for the private equity house on the M&A and financing aspects of the transaction. CVC will buy 51.8% of Recordati in a transaction valuing the company at almost €6bn.

London partners Mike Weir and Steve Worthington were also part of the team, alongside Milan-based Ferigo Foscari and Leonardo Graffi. Martin Forbes, James Greene, Iacopo Canino and Alessandro Nolet advised on the financing of the deal.

Italy private equity firm Gattai Minoli Agostinelli & Partners also acted for CVC with founder Bruno Gattai and partners Gerardo Gabrielli, Nicola Brunetti and Lorenzo Cairo. Independent firm Studio Tributario Associato Facchini Rossi & Soci advised on tax and due diligence with partners Luca Rossi, Giancarlo Lapecorella and Marina Ampolilla.

Also on the continent, Ropes & Gray advised Netherlands telecoms company Altice Europe on the sale of stakes in its tower businesses in France and Portugal to KKR, Morgan Stanley and Horizon Equity Partners in a deal worth €2.5bn.

London finance partner Michael Kazakevich led the US firm’s team acting on the financing side, while French firm Franklin advised Altice on the M&A aspects with partners Christian Sauer, Julie Catala Marty and Magali Masson.

French firm Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier and US giant Simpson Thacher advised KKR, which will buy 49.99% of Altice’s French tower company, including 1,200 sites in the country valued at €3.6bn.

Partners Alain Maillot and Jean-Baptiste de Martigny led Darrois’s team. Morgan Stanley infrastructure and horizon equity partners will acquire 75% of Altice’s Portuguese tower company, with a portfolio of 2,961 tower sites worth €660m.

Back in the UK, Ashurst advised Volcan Investments on the acquisition of Vedanta Resources in a deal valuing the UK mining company at £2.3bn and bringing an end to its UK listing.

Corporate partner Tom Mercer led the team acting for Volcan, which already owns 66.5% of Vedanta and is seeking to acquire the rest for £778m. Corporate partner Robert Ogilvy Watson and finance partner Tim Rennie were also part of the Ashurst team.

Ashurst had acted for Vedanta on the $812.6m acquisition of Electrosteel Steels and the $2.3bn merger with Cairn India. But this time the firm acted for Volcan, which had previously turned to Allen & Overy as it invested £3.5bn in Anglo American.

Latham advised the independent committee of the board of Vedanta with a London-based team led by corporate partners Richard Butterwick and Nick Cline.

marco.cillario@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Financials 2017/18: Ashurst posts 4% revenue uptick and second year of double-digit PEP growth

Posted on |
Financial results 2017/18 Ashurst

In what management has billed as ‘a strong performance globally’, Ashurst has reported a modest 4% uptick in revenue for 2017/18 while the firm sustained the 11% growth in profit per equity partner (PEP) achieved last year.

The firm’s revenue for the last financial year was £564m, up from £541m, while PEP stood at £743,000 compared with £672,000 in 2017.

The results mark a second year of growth following two consecutive years of decline that followed the City stalwart’s merger with Australia’s Blake Dawson in 2013.

Managing partner Paul Jenkins (pictured) told Legal Business that the 11% year-on-year PEP growth just exceeded his target. ‘We were aiming for 10% growth and we have achieved that over each of the last two years, so we are very happy with the result. We have focused on areas of strength for profitable growth and driving cost efficiency and innovation in service delivery.’

The firm’s core sectors are real estate, infrastructure, energy, digital economy and banks and funds. 85% of the firm’s revenue was generated via these sectors in 2017/18, compared with 80% of total revenue the previous year.

Jenkins noted that Asia Pacific has continued to perform well. ‘We have achieved double-digit revenue growth in Australia and China put in an excellent performance in a year in which we also launched a Joint Operating Office in Shanghai with Guantao. Demonstrating our ongoing investment in Singapore, we also established a formal law alliance with ADTLaw.’

He also pointed to ‘double-digit revenue growth across key practices in the UK’ and progress in the Middle East, which ‘continued to grow substantially,’ and ‘impressive results with growth across all practice areas’ in Germany. He added that Asia market would continue to be a strategic focus for the firm, while the US infrastructure market has also yielded particular success. The firm has identified opportunities in acting for Chinese banks on outbound investment in Europe and Australia.

Jan Gooze-Zijl, the firm’s chief financial and operations officer, also identified Luxembourg as an area of growth on the back of Brexit and to capitalise on funds activity. The firm last week secured licence approval for a new Luxembourg outpost, which is set to open in October.

Jenkins also said the firm has seen particularly strong performance in its dispute resolution, real estate, competition, regulatory and employment businesses. Restructuring and special situations has also seen very high levels of activity across Europe, as has corporate and banking in London. Technology is also expected to remain a priority. In April, the firm hired GE Capital International’s IT director Noel Jordan as its chief technology officer.

Jenkins concluded: ‘I am confident that our strong trajectory will continue in FY19. In the last two years, we have focused on achieving sustained revenue and profit improvement. There are many significant prospects and opportunities that lie ahead as we build on our achievements as a high-performance and collaborative firm committed to operating at the forefront of change in the industry.’

The firm made 31 lateral hires during the year and promoted 24 internal candidates to partner. The firm also fared considerably better than its peers when it came to gender diversity, with 58% of the partners it made up being female.

Some key mandates for Ashurst during the year have included advising Aveva Group on its £3bn combination with Schneider Electric’s industrial software business and acting for an infrastructure investor consortium fronted by Dalmore Capital on its acquisition of Cory Riverside Energy, the owner of the UK’s largest energy-from-waste plant in London, for more than £1.5bn.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

Ashurst targets funds and Brexit business with Luxembourg launch

Posted on |
Europe Ashurst

Ashurst is a step closer to building out its European funds offering having today (22 June) received licence approval for a new Luxembourg office from the country’s Bar association.

Corporate partner Isabelle Lentz – currently head of the firm’s Luxembourg desk in London -will take the helm at the new outpost, which is set to open in October.

The move is designed to bolster the firm’s position in the funds market and also take advantage of opportunities posed by Brexit as businesses transfer to the Grand Duchy.

Ashurst is hiring for the new office, with a view to having between 15 and 20 legal and business services staff ensconced within a year of opening.

Paul Jenkins, managing partner, said: ‘As a leading investment fund centre in Europe, the second largest globally in terms of assets under management and a hub for international banks and fintech, the opportunities in Luxembourg are significant. Growing our offering and building on the proven track record of our  established Luxembourg desk is an exciting prospect and one which will greatly enhance our client service offering.’

Lentz added: ‘Over recent years, Luxembourg has secured it status as a key financial centre and as one of the frontrunners of preferred EU locations for transfer of business related to Brexit, that is only set to increase. I am really looking forward to capitalising on this by developing our presence in Luxembourg and enhancing our capability.’

The firm’s Luxembourg desk in London was set up in 2011 and advises on corporate, private equity, funds, restructuring, regulatory, real estate and banking matters. Recent mandates for the five-strong desk have included advising investor Digital Colony on its April 2018 acquisition from First State Investments on Digita Oy, the owner and operator of digital terrestrial television and radio broadcasting tower infrastructure network in Finland.

Other recent mandates have seen the team advise US fund Castlelake on the restructuring of a number of Luxembourg companies ahead of the IPO of property developer Aedas Homes, Aviva Investors and Shard Capital on the establishment of unregulated private debt funds, Nordic private equity shop CapMan Real Estate on its €425m fund raising of a private FCP- RAIF fund and the banks on a bridge financing for fund manager EQT.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Partnership Perspectives

Posted on | and
Partnership AshurstHogan LovellsWatson Farley and Williams

‘The Dickensian management role of closed doors is a thing of the past.’

Jonathan Kewley, partner and co-head of Clifford Chance’s tech group. Made up in 2017

What attracted you to partnership?

I’m working in tech, a space that didn’t exist 30 years ago. There are challenges facing clients that didn’t exist five years ago. The tech environment fits with the character traits of partnership. You have to be entrepreneurial, and it’s more exciting to be that way. It maintains interest.

Legal Business

Deal watch: Slaughters tunes into Sky bidding war as Links and Ashurst waste no opportunity on Cory Riverside disposal

Posted on |
Corporate AshurstLinklatersSlaughter and May

Slaughter and May has been drafted in by the Walt Disney Company on its Sky News bid while Linklaters and Ashurst took the lead as infrastructure investors scoop UK waste management business Cory Riverside Energy.

The latest twist in the multi-billion pound takeover of Sky has seen a team led by Slaughters corporate partner Richard Smith advising Disney on a bid for Sky News. This after a UK government decision last week (5 June) that Rupert Murdoch-owned 21st Century Fox could pursue its £18.5bn bid for the 61% of Sky it did not already own on the condition it sells Sky News.

UK culture secretary Matt Hancock said he agreed with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that divesting Sky News to Disney, or to an alternative suitable buyer, with an agreement to ensure it is funded for at least ten years, is likely to be the most proportionate and effective remedy for the public interest concerns that have been identified.

21st Century Fox, advised by Allen & Overy (A&O), had put its bid in for Sky in December 2016, valuing the UK-listed media and telecoms giant at £10.75 a share.

But then earlier this year, Philadelphia-headquartered broadcasting heavyweight Comcast threatened to thwart that deal, offering what it called a ‘superior’ £22bn cash proposal of £12.50 a share, a 16% increase in value on 21st Century Fox’s offer.

Acting for Comcast on its bid for Sky is a London-based Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer team, as well as Davis Polk & Wardwell out of New York. Meanwhile, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett are advising 21st Century Fox on its bid, while Sky is advised by Herbert Smith Freehills.

Sky has been coveted for years. In 2010, News Corp made an £8bn takeover bid for Sky, only to withdraw a year later because of the phone-hacking trial. Regulatory concerns regarding media ownership have also been raised around combining Murdoch’s News Corp media giant with Europe’s largest pay-TV broadcaster.

HSF and A&O also led for Sky and 21st Century Fox in 2014, when Sky (then called BskyB) concluded a deal worth up to £7.4bn to buy European sister companies Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia from 21st Century Fox.

In another big-ticket deal, an Ashurst team led by partners Jason Radford and Nick Rainsford advised an infrastructure investor consortium fronted by Dalmore Capital on its acquisition of Cory Riverside Energy, the owner of the UK’s largest energy-from-waste plant in London, for more than £1.5bn.

The consortium, including Canadian fund manager Fiera Infrastructure, Semperian PPP Investment Partners, and Swiss Life Asset Managers – the investment arm of insurance company Swiss Life – is buying all of Cory.

The sellers, distressed debt investor Strategic Value Partners, EQT Credit, Commerzbank and other shareholders, were advised by a Linklaters team led by partner Ben Rodham.

Strategic Value Partners, Commerzbank and EQT Credit took over Cory in 2015 amid a debt-to-equity restructuring which also saw Cory sell its non-core businesses in waste collection and landfill & gas to refocus on its core energy recovery facility. Cory’s debt was then restructured last year with £540m of debt facilities.

Cory’s energy-from-waste plant in Belvedere, east London, has been operational since 2012 and has an annual capacity of around 750,000 tonnes of residual waste.

Financial advisers on the sell-side were JP Morgan and Credit Suisse while Macquarie Capital and Rothschild advised the buyers.

Further afield, but also notable because of its size, a Bain Capital-led consortium’s US$18bn acquisition of Toshiba’s semiconductor business also kept a host of advisers busy.

The deal saw the Bain Capital consortium, which includes Apple, Seagate, Kingston, Hoya, Dell Technologies and SK Hynix, acquire the Japanese conglomerate’s Toshiba Memory business.

A Ropes & Gray team led by private equity partner Tsuyoshi Imai advised Bain Capital and a Dechert team led by Hong Kong corporate partner David Cho ‎and London finance partner John Markland advised SK Hynix.

A Morrison & Foerster team advised Toshiba, led by Tokyo managing partner Ken Siegel, corporate partner Ivan Smallwood, TTG partner Stuart Beraha and litigation partner Louise Stoupe.

Linklaters advised the banks – SMBC, MUFG, Mizuho Bank on their provision of 600bn yen ($5.5bn) of senior facilities for the acquisition. The Linklaters team was cross-jurisdictional and multi-practice, led by Zenya Onishi, banking counsel of Linklaters Tokyo and Davide Mencacci, banking partner of Linklaters Hong Kong.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Tidswell goes unchallenged in securing second term as Ashurst chair

Posted on |
Leadership Ashurst

Ben Tidswell has been handed another term as chair of Ashurst following an election which last week culminated in his leadership going unchallenged.

The City firm launched an election process at the start of May, giving opponents until the end of that month to put themselves forward for the role. But it is understood no other partners stood in the election.

Tidswell’s new term will run from 1 November 2018 for four years, building on an initial five-year stint in the role which started in 2013. The initial five-year run was one of the conditions of Ashurst’s merger with Australian firm Blake Dawson in 2013.

Tidswell has been at the helm through a rocky time, which saw turnover hit by two consecutive years of decline following the controversial merger, as well as a string of partner exits.

Earlier this year, however, Ashurst’s LLP accounts indicated a hit of recovery with a 12% turnover boost to £541m from £505m the previous year. The 2016/17 LLP accounts also showed show PEP rose 12% to £672,000 in 2016/17 after a 19% drop in 2015/16, when numbers plummeted from £747,000 to £603,000.

Paul Jenkins, managing partner of Ashurst, commented: ‘Over the last five years, [Tidswell] has demonstrated exceptional leadership and client skills which have played a critical role in allowing us to capitalise on the many opportunities we have as a firm. We had a very strong year and I am confident that we will achieve some outstanding results in the year ahead.’

Tidswell commented: ‘I am excited about the prospects that lie ahead for us and what we can collectively achieve and I look forward to working with Paul, the executive team, the board and all of my colleagues globally to build on our achievements as a high performance and collaborative firm.’

Tidswell joined Ashurst in 1993 and has been a partner in the City-based dispute resolution team since 2000. He was a member and chair of the new partners committee from 2004 to 2007 and was appointed to the board of Ashurst LLP in 2007.

Apart from London-based Tidswell and Jenkins, who splits his time between London and Sydney, the Ashurst board includes partners Karen Davies (London), Bernd Egbers (Munich), James Marshall (Sydney), Barbara Phair (Sydney), Jason Radford (London) and chief financial and operating officer Jan Gooze-Zijl (London) and independent board members Robert Gillespie and David Turner.

Ashurst has recently been replenishing its benches in London and internationally after a series of departures over the last few months.

Last week, the firm hired Baker McKenzie’s global co-head of securitisation Jonathan Walsh, in a move to counteract three big City losses last year. This included corporate partners James Wood and Dominic Ross leaving for Sidley Austin and White & Case respectively, while disputes stalwart Ben Giaretta joined Mishcon de Reya.

The firm did begin 2018 with some City appointments, however, including litigator Alison Hardy from Squire Patton Boggs.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk