Legal Business

Ashurst promotes 19 to partnership following a year of departures

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Partnership promotions Ashurst

In an increased round, Ashurst has promoted 19 to partnership with a roughly even spread across its European and Asia Pacific offices.

The firm promoted 53% of its new partners across Europe with 47% made up in the Asia Pacific. However, only four of the cohort are women – just 21% – compared with 33% last year. In 2016 Ashurst promoted 12 to partnership in a reduced round, down from 20% the year previous.

Seven have been promoted in both Ashurst’s London and Australian offices with one each in France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain. Corporate and banking departments have both been boosted by four partners, with employment receiving three, two in securities and derivatives, and utilities and resources, and one in each of competition, dispute resolution, IP and real estate.

Ashurst managing partner Paul Jenkins (pictured) said: ‘We continue to invest across our global network and promoting 19 partners across a wide variety of practices and offices reflects the strength of our business and client demand.’

Ashurst has lost several partners both in the City and from its international offices over the past year following 2015/16 financial results which saw profit per equity partner drop by 19% to £603,000 from £747,000. Turnover also fell 10% to £505m. However, management claims profitability is currently on course for a significant rebound in 2016/17.

Last month Ashurst launched a European high-yield offering, picking up Allen & Overy senior associate Tamer Bahgat, who has been made up to partner at Ashurst, and Linklaters counsel Natalia Sokolova. Ashurst said the move follows the success of high-yield partner Anna-Marie Slot in Hong Kong.

Going the other way, in one of the most significant team hires between major City players for some time, a group of five Paris corporate partners – collectively responsible for a book of business worth £8m – is moving from Ashurst to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Ashurst partner promotions in full

Alex Biles, securities and derivatives, London

Ruth Buchanan, employment, London

Simon Bullock, corporate, London

Malcolm Charles, securities and derivatives, London

Nicolas Deuerling, real estate, Frankfurt

Stuart Dullard, corporate, Sydney

Adam Firth, dispute resolution, Sydney

James Fletcher, corporate, London

Nataline Fleury, employment, Paris

Andrew Gay, resources and utilities, Perth

Anthony Johnson, resources and utilities, London

Callum McPherson, banking, London

Nick Pawson, banking, Madrid

Alyssa Phillips, competition, Brisbane

Andrew Rankine, IP, Sydney

Trent Sebbens, employment, Sydney

Kenneth Tang, banking, Sydney

Jean Woo, banking, Singapore

Chin Yeoh, corporate, Hong Kong

 

Legal Business

Adviser review: Clifford Chance, Hogan Lovells and Ashurst lose out on FCA panel

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Adviser reviews AshurstClifford ChanceHogan Lovells

RPC, Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) and Squire Patton Boggs have won panel spots at the expense of rival City outfits with places on the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) roster of skilled advisers.

Clifford Chance (CC), Hogan Lovells and Ashurst all lost out on the panel, which was finalised on 1 April.

NRF won places on three lots to advise on client assets, business conduct and financial crime. Squires won a place for advice on financial crime and RPC won a role to act on business conduct matters.

CC had previously held positions in four lots on the panel, for client assets, governance controls and risk frameworks, financial crime and deposit takers.

A total of six law firms were appointed to the panel which includes accountants, financial and public relations advisers. DLA Piper, Eversheds Sutherland, and Macfarlanes all retained places, while RPC, Squires and NRF were the new additions.

One City partner at a panel firm said: ‘The FCA looks at quality and quantity, experience, pricing and project management capabilities. It’s a quite a competitive process.’

The FCA’s last panel was revamped in 2013, with the current roster set to until 2021.

CC has recently acted against the FCA in the so-called ‘London Whale’ case advising executive Achilles Marcis in a recent Supreme Court hearing.

Other recent adviser reviews have seen the Crown Commercial Services legal panel trimmed back, with its roster cut from 40 firms to 18. Meanwhile, the government has launched a tender process for a £90m finance panel.

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Revolving doors: National recruits for Eversheds and TLT, while Ashurst and DWF bulk up in Europe

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Strategic recruitment AshurstDWFEversheds Sutherland

In a busy week for both UK-based lateral hires and those further afield in Europe, Eversheds Sutherland has strengthened its education sector group in Leeds, while Ashurst has appointed a new banking partner in Italy.

Eversheds Sutherland has hired from Pinsent Masons with the appointment of employment partner Chris Mordue, who led the firm’s national university employment and industrial relations teams.

Mordue has spent over 19 years in the higher education sector and has comprehensive experience across the full range of employment work for universities. He has particular expertise in working on the reform of dismissal and grievance procedures of chartered universities as well as handling high-profile employment disputes, senior level exits, industrial relations issues and restructures, and the employment aspects of international ventures and mergers.

Meanwhile, national law firm TLT has bolstered its real estate group in Manchester with the appointment of John Hyde. Hyde, who joins in May 2017 from Weightmans has over 25 years’ experience in the commercial property sector acting for a wide range of clients including IKEA (pension fund), JJB, and Total Fitness. He has also acted on significant transactions including the refinancing of the MEN arena and is noted by the Legal 500 as ‘responsive and technically excellent.’

Further afield, Ashurst has appointed partner Mario Lisanti to lead the firm’s banking practice in Milan. He will be joined by two senior lawyers, Alberto Castelli and Domenico Petrone. Lisanti joins from Norton Rose Fulbright and has almost 20 years’ experience of acting for banks, asset managers and investors on a wide range of banking and finance transactions.

Stephen Edlmann, managing partner of Ashurst in Italy, said that the move complemented the firm’s strategy to grow its offering in globally strategic areas and enhances Ashurst’s breadth and depth of practice in Milan.

Finally, DWF has appointed litigation partner Romain Dupeyré to its Paris team following the firm’s recent merger with French firm Heenan Paris. Dupeyré joins from litigation boutique BOPS and specialises in international arbitration and insurance litigation.

Jean-François Mercadier, DWF France managing partner, said: ‘Romain’s appointment is the first step of DWF France’s development post-merger, consolidating the firm’s profile in the African market as one of the leading firms in Paris.’

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘It has been an obstacle’: Ashurst launches European high-yield practice

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Finance Ashurst

After losing a number of finance partners in the last 12 months, Ashurst has made moves to re-strengthen its City offering and is developing a European high-yield offering for the first time.

The firm has picked up Allen & Overy (A&O) senior associate Tamer Bahgat, who has been made up to partner at Ashurst, and Linklaters counsel Natalia Sokolova to develop its European high-yield offering.

Ashurst says the move follows the success of high-yield partner Anna-Marie Slot in Hong Kong. Since joining two years ago, Slot has advised the underwriters in India’s first green bond issuance issued by Greenko Investment Company in an aggregate principal amount of $500m to address the financing needs of Greenko Energy Holdings’ Indian operating subsidiaries. She also advised Studio City Company Limited in its offering of $1.2bn of senior secured notes.

Before joining A&O, Bahgat worked for Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York and London. Clients he shares with Ashurst include Barclays, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Citi, RBS, Lone Star and CVC.

Sokolova was previously a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago.

Bahgat explains: ‘What’s exciting about this move to Ashurst is that it creates a one stop shop concept for clients by providing a place where bank and bond financings under both US and English law are offered. It allows us to further address the convergence of products that’s becoming more evident in European leverage finance transactions. We also have a very strong global footprint which positions us as one of the top firms in the City that can provide that complex cross-border work, which certain competitors can’t.’

While 70% of Ashurst’s finance practices focuses on lender side work, while around 20 to 30% of work is done for borrower side clients. Global co-head of finance Helen Burton explains the practice is ahead of its targets for this financial year, but the lack of high-yield capability has caused some frustration.

Burton (pictured) said: ‘Paul [Jenkins] and I have talked for a long time about the lack of high-yield capability that we have in Europe. It hampers on the leveraged finance side. The reality is that the landscape of the capital structure has changed in Europe, and not having high-yield capability has been an obstacle for us.’

She added: ‘The definition of a successful business is an expanding business. We do anticipate the platform will grow.’

Ashurst has made the hires following a flat high-yield market in 2016. In the first three months of last year, European issuance totalled $9.6bn according to Thomson Reuters. However the market is picking up in calendar year 2017 with issuance at $31.3bn to date.

Burton also expects Ashurst to expand its offering in the financial regulatory space and fintech.

Ashurst saw several key finance partners depart last year including head of financial services regulation Rob Moulton and partner Nicola Higgs who departed for Latham & Watkins as well as Michael Smith, Diala Minott and Cameron Saylor who moved to Paul Hastings.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more: ‘LB100 Focus: Don’t look back in anger: Ashurst leadership tries to rally partners but the drift continues’

Legal Business

Comment: Hot private equity money is remaking Europe’s legal market

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Finance AshurstFreshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

What are we to make of the most aggressive raid between top ten City firms since Allen & Overy helped itself to the bulk of Norton Rose’s leveraged finance team back in 2002? In some ways, news this month that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is to ship in a productive five-partner buyout group from Ashurst seems even more notable.

For Freshfields, which has shied away from lateral recruitment in its European heartlands, to make such a huge commitment is striking and speaks to the doubled-down bet the Magic Circle firm has made in private equity and related finance.

In 2015 its much-vaunted team secured a way-above plateau recruitment of high-yield specialist Ward McKimm, culturally a big ask for a firm where veteran partners treat lockstep like religion.

This latest commitment in Paris, for a team with business worth around £8m, is even more notable and illustrates the extent to which Freshfields’ buyout team has gained huge internal clout.

For Ashurst, the move is a considerable but not surprising reverse. The team was long known to be unhappy with Ashurst’s direction and profitability – an issue brought to a head after heavy investment and falling income in 2015/16 savaged its bottom line.

The response from Appold Street is that the firm is realistic about how its business is reshaping post-Blake Dawson, repositioning the firm as an upper mid-market player with extra potency in infrastructure, real estate and related funds, TMT and several product lines in finance. There is nothing wrong with that but it’s plainly not the Ashurst of old and not the easiest narrative to articulate.

Such niceties will take a back seat for now as Ashurst has to demonstrate a tight grip on its finances under new managing partner Paul Jenkins (pictured) before it runs into major investment for its Spitalfields move in 2019. The claim is that morale has steadied after a torrid period in the autumn and that profits are on course for a much better year. It hardly needs saying that Ashurst needs that result.

The wider story in Europe’s legal market is the extent to which unprecedented investment in private equity and leverage finance is remaking strategically key practice lines.

Ashurst has had a hole punched in its European private equity practice leaving it with functional coverage in Paris. The firm – once a brand name for buyout work – is increasingly relegated to mid-tier status in Europe and most City players have seen their position in private equity heavily eroded as US law firms have piled in.

At every point that the leveraged deal market seemed to reach equilibrium over the last decade, it has been bid continually higher. On the same day that news of the Ashurst move emerged, Sidley Austin unveiled a seven-partner Munich deal team taken from Kirkland & Ellis, echoing Sidley’s six-partner hire last spring from the same firm.

Last April Goodwin Procter, of course, hired a private equity and funds team in Paris from King & Wood Mallesons with devastating impact. That the greatest strengths of SJ Berwin were in exactly the portable areas of funds and private equity that were top of the shopping list for high-paying US firms was a factor in that firm ending up as Europe’s largest legal insolvency.

The force of money chasing these mobile stars is shaking law firms to their foundations, contributing to the breakdown in lockstep at elite London firms. There has never been a better time to be a serious player in private equity. Conversely, for managing partners, there has never been a better time to have had your firm sit this one out.

No-one doubts there is a heap of money to be made here but the full impact of this on the legal market is yet to be calculated. And the forces sweeping through the profession have not finished yet.

alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk

Read more in: ‘The M&A Report: Private equity offers the clients for all seasons’

Legal Business

Ashurst Paris corporate team chooses Freshfields as Magic Circle firm reinvigorates offering

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Corporate AshurstFreshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Madeleine Farman on a rare team move between London-based international players

In one of the most significant team hires between major City players for some time, a group of five Paris corporate partners – collectively responsible for a book of business worth £8m – is moving from Ashurst to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Legal Business

Update: Freshfields targets Ashurst for five-partner private team as legal elite tightens grip on premium funds clients

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Europe AshurstFreshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is to punch a major hole in Ashurst’s European private equity practice with the City giant voting on a deal to take on a five-partner buyout team from Ashurst’s Paris arm.

This comes after the Ashurst team had already approached some US firms, including Dechert, within the last six months. Confirmation that Freshfields is to take on the group represents one of the most significant team hires between major City players for years and comes on the same day that Sidley Austin unveiled an audacious move to ship in a seven-partner private equity team from Kirkland & Ellis’s Munich office.

The Ashurst team has generated annual billings of well over £5m in recent years, the vast bulk of which is expected to transfer to Freshfields in a significant addition to the Magic Circle firm’s much-vaunted European buyout practice.

The transferring partners are Guy Benda, Nicolas Barberis, Stéphanie Corbière, Yann Gozal and Laurent Mabilat. Barberis is the standout name and a key client partner for Charterhouse Capital Partners – a multimillion-pound client for the office. Barberis advised Charterhouse on the purchase of French technology company Sagemcom from The Carlyle Group for a reported €400m in October last year and again in November 2016 on the acquisition of French pharmaceutical group Cooper, which is valued at around €700m.

The departure, which had been expected for months, will put a significant dent in Ashurst’s revenues in its Paris office, which in recent years has generated between £25m to £30m.

It is also understood that partner Nadine Gelli will leave the Paris office in favour of a local law firm.

A spokesperson at Ashurst said: ‘We will continue to have a very strong and well-diversified business in Paris. This will include 12 partners covering restructuring, finance, real estate, corporate, private equity, disputes, projects, regulatory and competition. These partners have played a critical role in the longstanding success of the office and we have no doubt they will continue to deliver impressive results in the Paris market.’ The firm confirmed it expects to boost partner numbers in May.

One Ashurst partner told Legal Business: ‘To some extent, this has been in our ‘share price’ for a while. Yes, we’re disappointed but the partners knew this was coming.’

A former Ashurst partner added: ‘The Paris office is very profitable and I’ve heard quite a number of them complaining about the new management. They were quite angry.’

The move will bulk up Freshfields’ Paris offering after it lost a four-partner team is to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Corporate partner Patrick Tardivy, finance partners Emmanuel Ringeval and Hervé Touraine and Paris employment head Emmanuel Benard left the French office within a week of a four-strong team exiting Freshfields’ Hamburg office to launch a boutique called Chatham Partners.

Ashurst has lost several partners both in the City and from its international offices over the past year following 2015/16 financial results which saw profit per equity partner drop by 19% to £603,000 from £747,000. Turnover also fell 10% to £505m. Profitability is, however, currently on course for a significant rebound in 2016/17.

Other firms aggressive in the Paris private equity market include Goodwin Procter, which in April last year hired six King & Wood Mallesons partners including Paris managing partner and co-head of corporate Christophe Digoy, Maxence Bloch, Jérôme Jouhanneaud and Thomas Maitrejean, Pierre-Louis Sévegrand, William Robert.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

Ashurst refreshes Hong Kong outpost with Linklaters hire

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Hong Kong AshurstLinklaters

Ashurst continues to bulk up its Asia Pacific offering with the hire of Linklaters partner PH Chik to its Hong Kong office.

The appointment comes after the office lost its former office managing partner Lina Lee and partner Jonathan Hsui who quit to join Allen & Overy’s (A&O) capital markets practice in September.

Corporate partner Chik specialises in Hong Kong listing work, including Hong Kong IPOs, secondary offerings and post-listing compliance, with a particular focus on Chinese state-owned enterprises. He joined Linklaters’ Beijing office in 2012 after moving from Baker & McKenzie where he spent five years.

Ashurst’s Asia corporate head Stuart Rubin said: ‘Hong Kong ECM has long been, and will continue to be, an engine for the growth of our broader corporate practice. PH’s hire will complement our existing investment bank relationships to enable us to compete for Hong Kong’s premier IPOs.’

Chik’s arrival follows the hires of M&A partner John Brewster, who joins from Clayton Utz, and Shane Kyriakou from Herbert Smith Freehills to its Melbourne office. Ashurst confirmed their appointments earlier this week.

Ashurst lost Singapore managing partner Shaun Lascelles in October who moved to Vinson & Elkins, along with fellow corporate partner Keith McGuire, who left the Singapore office in favour of PwC Legal. Abu Dhabi managing partner Alastair Holland joined Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle.

Linklaters saw a number of senior exits early last year. Capital markets partners Singapore-based Dean Lockhart and Hong Kong-based Jeremy Webb resigned last January, along with big-billing Hong Kong corporate partner Christopher Kelly.

Linklaters’ partnership decided against pursuing a fully-fledged merger to secure credible China law coverage and voted through plans for a local spin-off.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more: ‘Don’t look back in anger: Ashurst leadership tries to rally partners but the drift continues’

 

 

Legal Business

LLP latest: spending spike and debt increase underlines tough year for Ashurst

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Financial results 2015/16 Ashurst

Ashurst’s latest LLP accounts show a spike in capital expenditure and a stark fall in operating profit defined a tough year for the Anglo-Australian firm in 2015/16, in which revenues fell for the second year in a row.

Operating profit dropped to £152m from £193m, a 21% percent decrease and turnover dipped by £28m, bringing the firm’s revenues down 10% to £505m. The drop followed 2014/15’s 4% decrease following its merger with Blake Dawson in 2013.

The firm’s consolidated cash flow statement shows the firm held a net debt of £14m at the end of last year, a swing from 2014/15 when it had net funds of £11m. Meanwhile, referring to a breakdown of bank loans and finance leases, which sit at just below £30m, the accounts state: ‘The terms of the bank loans restrict the group from making significant disposals of assets without the consent of the lender’.

Capital expenditure spiked to £37m in 2015/16, a significant jump on £16m the year previous. The firm pointed to increased investment in premises and IT infrastructure projects as reason for change, such as opening a new Sydney office in July 2016 that cost approximately A$40m (£23m).

Profits per equity partner also fell by 19%, down to £603,000 from £747,000 during the 2015/16 financial year. However, the highest-paid member received £1.09m in 2015/16, a £77,000 increase on the previous financial year. Meanwhile, the average number of members decreased by five on the previous year to 344 with the number of fee-earning staff also dropping by 2% to 1,368. The number of other staff, however, increased by 8% to 1,354. Staff costs fell to £217m from £220m.

Partners at Ashurst voted in favour of a single yearly profit payment in December to replace quarterly distributions after the firm halted quarterly distributions in August following the disappointing financial results.

The changes required a 50% vote to pass and as a result a £1m net increase in capital will be made by the partnership.

Earlier in the year Ashurst partners voted through fundamental changes to its remuneration system in a bid to retain star partners following a wave of exits, including stretching its lockstep and allocating equity share to salaried partners.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

For more on the firm, see our LB100 focus ‘Don’t look back in anger: Ashurst leadership tries to rally partners but the drift continues’ (£)

 

Legal Business

‘A different weight class’: Ashurst exits resume as Pinsents and Burges Salmon hire a partner each

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Strategic recruitment AshurstBurges SalmonPinsent Masons

Despite seeming to plug a run of partner exits late last year, Ashurst has lost two partners, with Pinsent Masons and Burges Salmon each picking up new hires.

Corporate insurance partner Hammad Akhtar is to join Pinsent Masons as the head of its corporate offering within the financial sector. Akhtar advises clients in the insurance, retail banking and private banking sectors on a broad range of transactions including disposals, acquisitions and reorganisations. Akhtar moved to Ashurst four years ago from Herbert Smith Freehills, where he was made up to partner in 2010.

Pinsents head of financial services Alexis Roberts said: ‘Hammad is someone whom we have admired for a long time with an established reputation in the City. He will add strength and depth to our corporate capability and complement the existing corporate financial services practice built up by Hannah Brader over recent years. We anticipate that Hammad’s arrival, combined with our proven track record in this area, will move us into a different weight class with respect to transactional work across the financial services sector.’

Meanwhile, Burges Salmon has taken on funds partner Jeremy Bell who has experience advising on the structuring and formation of private investment funds across the alternative asset classes as well as advising on investment into funds.

An Ashurst spokesperson said Bell was ‘leaving for family reasons and will be relocating to Bristol’. She added: ‘We wish him the very best for the future and thank him for his role in helping to establish our well diversified international investment funds practice.’

In December Ashurst hired Milan based partner Paolo Manganelli to head up the office’s restructuring team. He joined from Paul Hastings where he had been since 2014.

The firm also found a replacement chief financial and operations officer with UKTV’s Jan Gooze-Zijl stepping into the role, it emerged in November. Gooze-Zijl, who joined UKTV in 2010, will join Ashurst in February taking up a position on the firm’s executive committee as well as its management board.

The firm voted through changes to its remuneration system in August last following a flood of partner exits and its second revenue dip following its merger with Australia’s Blake Dawson in 2013.

Financial year 2015/16 revenue dropped by £28m to £505m, while profits per equity partner fell by 19%, down to £603,000 from £747,000 during the 2015/16 financial year.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more: ‘Comment: Looking forward to Ashurst’s decline – The outlook worsens for a proud City institution’