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

Magic moves – Freshfields signs 20-year lease with Bishopsgate move set for 2021

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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

With the exception of Clifford Chance recently rearranging its deckchairs in Canary Wharf, it has been years since one of London’s elite law firms signed on for a new office but Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has today (15 February) confirmed its long-awaited departure from Fleet Street for 100 Bishopsgate.

The Magic Circle firm has signed a pre-let agreement taking on a 20-year lease from 2021, although Freshfields still has the flexibility to vary the level of space before its move-in date. It will initially take on 12 floors of the 37 storey building, giving it 255,000 square feet, as expected reducing its London real estate by roughly a third.

Having been on Fleet Street for almost 30 years, Freshfields began assessing its options early last year and had considered subletting part of its current premises. The firm whittled its shortlist to two locations around July, with 60-70 St Mary Axe the second option. The firm had been expected to opt for Bishopsgate since late last year.

Freshfields currently occupies 221,000 square feet at its Fleet Street base with an additional 150,000 square feet at its nearby 28 Tudor Street offices. 100 Bishopsgate is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

London managing partner Julian Long said: ‘We have taken a long-term lease at 100 Bishopsgate, underlining our commitment to our successful London office.’

Long told Legal Business: ‘I’m very happy with the space we’ve taken and there is some helpful optionality that I think is too far away [to be definitive on]. The new building will be more efficient. We’ve obviously moved some people to Manchester but it’s not around cost saving.’

The City move comes amid a period of change for the 274-year-old firm’s operational agenda. Freshfields opened the doors to its low-cost Manchester services hub in July 2015. Later that year, the firm selected a permanent location, One New Bailey, located by Spinningfields in Salford, doubling the size of its current office to 80,000 square feet. It is expected to move into the new premises next year. In April, the firm confirmed it would open a second low-cost hub. At the time Freshfields chose Vancouver, Canada as its favoured location.

Other firms on the move include Ashurst, which is to relocate its entire London operation to 1-10 Brushfield Street in Spitalfields in 2019. On a 20-year lease, Ashurst will take up the entire office space, around 275,000 square feet, in the London Fruit & Wool Exchange when the building is completed.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Magic Circle duo to take home £102m in fees from mega stock exchange merger

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Corporate Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerLinklaters

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters are expected to take home £102m in fees as they advise on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Deutsche Börse’s attempted tie-up.

Documents filed to LSE show legal advice could reach up to £112m. LSE expects it will spend a minimum of £55m on legal fees while Deutsche Börse has calculated it will spend £47m. Total aggregate fees and expenses are calculated to be at least £276m.

Freshfields partners Andrew Hutchings London M&A co-head Piers Prichard Jones led the team representing LSE. Former corporate partner Mark Rawlinson also headed up the magic circle team before leaving the firm last year. Linklaters corporate partner Roger Barron acted for Deutsche Börse, along with Simon Branigan in London and Ralph Wollburg and Staffan Illert in Germany.

In March last year LSE and Deutsche Börse agreed terms for a merger of equals that is set to create one of the largest exchange companies in the world, with a combined value of about £21bn. Under the terms of the deal, LSE shareholders will own 45.6% of the new holding company, while Deutsche Börse shareholders will own 54.4%.

Freshfields took home a chunk of the $261m in fees arising from the $1.94bn in advisory fees generated by Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (AB InBev) $108bn takeover of SABMiller. Freshfields took the lion’s share of AB InBev’s $185m legal fees, which the scheme circular states is based on completion of the deal, with Wall Street firms Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Sullivan & Cromwell next in line having handled the US law element. SullCrom ran the brewer’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US firms handled several disposals.

Linklaters took the biggest share of the $76m in legal fees spent by SABMiller with a team led by senior partner Charlie Jacobs and M&A partner Nick Rumsby. Hogan Lovells were next in line having advised the brewer on certain aspects of the deal. Hogan Lovells, which has long been SABMiller’s go-to law firm, were thought to be overlooked to run the deal, with Linklaters deemed to have more M&A firepower. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton are regular advisers on SABMiller’s US tax issues.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Freshfields LLPs reveal revenue £40m short of previously stated turnover

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Financial results 2015/16 Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer‘s Companies House filings state turnover as £40m lower than its previously reported revenue figures for 2015/16, with the firm claiming exchange rates are the reason for the discrepancy.

The Magic Circle firm posted a 0.5% revenue lift in its Companies House filings for the 2015/16 financial year, after it claimed a 7% turnover boost for the same period when it unveiled results last year. The LLPs put the Magic Circle firm’s revenue at £1.29bn from £1.28bn the year before, £40m short of its earlier reported results.

In July 2016 Freshfields said its revenue for 2015/16 was up by 7% to £1.33bn for the financial year, clawing back from 2014/15’s flat results when revenues rose just 1% to £1.26bn.

Freshfields indicated its LLPs use average exchange rates for the year, while the figures it releases use year-end exchange rates.

The accounts also show a 24% tumble in operating profit from £514.2m to £392.3m. This figure was impacted by a sharp increase in the firm’s pension provision which stood at £94.4m for 2015/16, due to an accounting treatment.

According to the accounts, Freshfields’ senior partner, managing partners and heads of global practice groups took home £18.1m, up by 8% on the £16.8m the team received in 2014/15.

Freshfields’ average number of members dropped by ten to 324 with the number of fee earning staff also decreasing by 5% last year from 2,640 to 2,511. The number of secretarial staff dropped by eight to 2,111. Staff costs increased, however, by 4% to £584.5m.

The firm advised on 190 M&A deals worth $587.6bn in 2015 according to Dealogic’s global league table, taking on a number of key roles in notable transactions. Freshfields instructed Anheuser-Busch InBev in its £108bn merger with SABMiller and won the mandate advising BG Group in the £35bn tie-upby Royal Dutch Shell. It also took a lead role advising the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in its third attempt at a tie-up with Deutsche Börse, which would create a combined value of about £21bn.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Quinn, Freshfields and HSF in drivers’ seat for firms defending truck cartel claims

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Litigation Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerHerbert Smith FreehillsQuinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

Partners at a raft of firms including Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are gearing up for potential damages claims against Europe’s biggest truck makers after they admitted to operating a 14 year price cartel.

Truck makers Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Paccar, Inveco and Volkswagen’s MAN were all fined after admitting to the cartel back in June 2016.

Quinn partner Boris Bronfentrinker is leading Daimler’s defence in the United Kingdom while Vovlo-owned Renault has enlisted Freshfields’ head of global antitrust litigation Jon Lawrence and partner Bea Tormey to co-ordinate defences for claims in several EU jurisdictions.

Inveco has instructed Herbert Smith Freehills partner Kim Dietzel while Slaughter and May is understood to be representing MAN.

Meanwhile, claimants include Royal Mail, the Road Haulage Association and truck owners represented by litigation funders Burford Capital and Bentham Europe.

Royal Mail has instructed Berwin Leighton Paisner in a specific claim against Paccar, with a team lead by partners Andrew Hockley and Edward Coulson. It is not known which firm Paccar has instructed as defence. The Road Haulage Association is also preparing a claim and has instructed Backhouse Jones Solicitors, and David Went of Exchange Chambers.

Burford Capital is funding Hausfeld, in a claim overseen by managing partner Anthony Maton.

Meanwhile, Bentham Europe also said it will fund separate claim, worth €100bn against the truck makers. The litigation funder has selected legal counsel but refused to comment on which firm is acting.

Bentham chief investment officer Jeremy Marshall said: ‘Bentham is determined to bring the opportunity to recover the overcharges to the attention of as many truck purchasers as it can and enable these victims of the cartel collectively to seek redress. Claims against the truck cartel are expected to be one of the largest ever compensation claims resulting from a cartel ruling.’

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Freshfields promotes 40 to executive assistant but will recruit more in support staff review

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Restructuring Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has promoted around 40 of its personal assistants (PAs) to executive assistant after about 80 applied for the newly-created roles as part of a review of 180 staff.

In October 180 staff were offered voluntary redundancy as part of a London secretarial support staff review that is expected to bring headcount in the City down to about 160.

As part of the review, PAs were given the option to apply to become executive assistants, a role which involves more responsibility and pay. If PAs were unsuccessful in applying for that role, they were given the choice to either remain as a PA or take voluntary redundancy.

As the firm offered positions to 35-40 to internal candidates, it will now recruit externally to fill another 40-50 executive assistant positions. PAs which took the package are expected to be made redundant in groups over the next 12 months.

The review was led by London managing partner Julian Long and is the latest in a raft of measures to improve efficiency at the Magic Circle firm. It was revealed last November that Freshfields is to sign a new lease in the City at 100 Bishopsgate.

The firm had been looking for 300,000 sq ft with its Fleet Street lease in London due to expire in 2021. It currently occupies 221,000 sq ft at its Fleet Street base with an additional 150,000 sq ft at its nearby 28 Tudor Street offices. 100 Bishopsgate is to be completed in 2018.

Freshfields opened the doors to its low-cost Manchester services hub in July 2015. Later that year, the firm selected a permanent location, One New Bailey, doubling the size of its current office to 80,000 sq ft. It is expected to move into the new premises this year.

Freshfields declined to comment on the review.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

For more on Freshfields’ recent strategic developments, see The last champions – meet the leaders intent on sealing Freshfields’ place in the global elite

Legal Business

Supermarket sweep: Freshfields and Clifford Chance line up on Tesco takeover of Booker

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Corporate Clifford ChanceFreshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Clifford Chance are advising on Tesco’s £3.7bn merger with Booker Group, the UK’s biggest food wholesaler.

Announced this morning (27 January), the UK’s biggest supermarket agreed to a share and cash merger with Booker group to ‘create the UK’s leading food business’.

It will gain Booker’s cash and carry network with 200 branches as well as convenience store chain brands Premier, Londis and Budgens, which together have nearly 5,000 sites.

Tesco turned to its usual magic circle adviser Freshfields on the deal with a team led by global financial institutions co-head and Tesco relationship partner Claire Wills and corporate partner Stephen Hewes. Antitrust partners Alastair Chapman and Deirdre Trapp also advised.

Clifford Chance advised Booker with a team led by corporate partner Lee Coney and antitrust partner Greg Olsen. Corporate partner David Pudge‎ also acted on the deal.

Macfarlanes advised Tesco’s financial adviser Greenhill with corporate partner Graham Gibb leading the team.

Other key deals Freshfields has acted on for Tesco include the supermarket’s sale of its South Korean unit Homeplus for £4.2bn. Asia corporate partner Simon Weller led a team out of Hong Kong alongside Wills and corporate partner Alison Smith advising out of London.

Freshfields also advised Tesco on the formal criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office in 2014. It followed accounting irregularities that overstated the company’s estimated profits by £263m.

The firm also advised Tesco on the long-running Office of Fair Trading case concerning price-fixing certain dairy products in the market in 2012.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more in: ‘The M&A Report’

 

Legal Business

Freshfields loses another New York heavyweight as securities litigator Fishman moves to Goodwin

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US Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerGoodwin Procter

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has lost a member of its US partnership with Goodwin Procter hiring securities and commercial litigation partner Marshall Fishman.

Fishman will head Goodwin’s New York commercial and financial litigation practice. Joining the Magic Circle firm in 2010, Fishman moved to Freshfields’ New York office from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel alongside Walter Stuart who returned to Vinson & Elkins in 2014.

He has advised clients such as JP Morgan in cases brought by investors throughout the country arising out of the collapse of the two Bear Stearns hedge funds that held collateralised debt and mortgage obligations.

Fishman represented CIBC World Markets in federal court in an industry dispute involving the trading of derivative products totalling $1.55bn. He also advised Prudential Securities – the financial services arm of insurer Prudential Financial – in a multimillion-dollar commodity fraud trial before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Co-chair of Goodwin’s financial industry practice Thomas Hefferon said: ‘An accomplished and well-known leader in his field, Marshall combines a natural problem-solving ability with decades of wide-ranging industry experience, an exceptional network and a truly collaborative approach to successfully manage his clients’ most sophisticated cases.’

Freshfields boosted its US platform in November, taking corporate partner Aly El Hamamsy from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. However it lost litigator Michael Lacovara, who was executive partner, to join Latham & Watkins in June 2016. Part of a four-man global leadership team at Freshfields, Lacovara managed the firm’s global business services functions, and was responsible for the firm’s operating model and enhancement of its operational efficiency and client-service delivery.

Freshfields absorbed Lacovara’s exit by splitting his management roles between the three remaining members of its global leadership: Chris Pugh, Edward Braham and Stephan Eilers.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more: ‘When will the US become a land of opportunity for Freshfields?’

Legal Business

More leadership changes at Freshfields as Embley and Herman made M&A co-heads

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Corporate Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has rejigged the leadership of its heavyweight M&A practice, appointing London-based Bruce Embley and New York-based Matthew Herman as its new global M&A co-heads.

Corporate partner Embley (pictured) has recently advised Anheuser-Busch InBev on the divestments of SAB Miller’s European and eastern European beer brands to Asahi, ahead of the two beer giants’ mega merger last year. His clients include HSBC, Permira, Reinet, General Dynamics, TPG and the Qatar Investment Authority.

Herman joined Freshfields in 2003 as an associate from Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. He has advised clients such as Henderson Group, Sysco Corporation, Japan Tobacco, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, Mast-Jägermeister and Foster Wheeler.

The pair, who started their roles in December last year, replace Peter Lyons, who became regional managing partner for the Americas, and Ben Spiers, who confirmed he would leave the Magic Circle firm for Simpson Thacher & Bartlet in November last year.

Following their appointments Embley told Legal Business the duo had been focusing on issues for cross border deals.

He said: ‘The main issue that everyone’s trying to get their heads around is has the world become a slightly more protectionist place, and what does that mean for cross border deals? On the whole, domestic deals don’t tend to get influenced by protectionism but cross border deals tend to involve a wider variety of issues.’

‘What does that all mean? It’s pretty complicated because much cross border investment will remain highly welcome, but some I suspect is going to be increasingly harder to achieve.’

Piers Prichard Jones and Jennifer Bethlehem will continue on as London co-heads of M&A.

The firm’s global financial investors sector group also received a new head with private equity head Adrian Maguire taking on the role from heavyweight David Higgins.

The move comes as Linklaters has changed its corporate leadership, as Aedamar Comiskey was made global head of the Magic Circle firm’s corporate division. Comiskey, who had put her name in the ring for senior partner but lost to Charlie Jacobs, recently reshuffled its corporate team to bring through its next generation of corporate lawyers.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Read more on the City’s leading corporate teams in: ‘The M&A Report: To have and to have not’

Legal Business

Efficiency drive: Freshfields shakes up London secretarial staff roles

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Innovation Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Personal assistants at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London have been offered voluntary redundancy or the chance to apply for a more client-focused role in a move that affects around 180 staff.

PAs have been given the option to apply to become an executive assistant at the magic circle firm on an enhanced package. If they are unsuccessful in applying for that role, they can either remain as a personal assistant or take voluntary redundancy.

In a project that is understood to be led by London managing partner Julian Long, the executive assistant role will have more of a client focus. Whereas PAs at Freshfields are usually assigned to around six people, an executive assistant will be working with two or three people in addition to supporting partners. The process began in October and is due to be completed by the end of this month.

This is the latest in a raft of measures to improve efficiency at the magic circle firm. It was revealed last November that Freshfields is to sign a new lease in the City at 100 Bishopsgate.

The firm had been looking for 300,000 sq ft with its Fleet Street lease in London due to expire in 2021. It currently occupies 221,000 sq ft at its Fleet Street base with an additional 150,000 sq ft at its nearby 28 Tudor Street offices. 100 Bishopsgate is to be completed in 2018.

Freshfields opened the doors to its low-cost Manchester services hub in July 2015. Later that year, the firm selected a permanent location, One New Bailey, doubling the size of its current office to 80,000 sq ft. It is expected to move into the new premises this year.

In April 2016 the firm confirmed it would open a second low-cost hub. At the time Freshfields chose Vancouver, Canada as its favoured location.

madeleine.farman@legaleae.co.uk