Legal Business

Revolving doors: Greenberg hires to support new KWM team as A&O and Fieldfisher add to their benches

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Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryFieldfisherGreenberg Traurig

Greenberg Taurig has made another lateral play in the City to build on its real estate funds hires from King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) as Weightmans, Paul Hastings, Mayer Brown, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Fieldfisher have all made new appointments.

Greenberg has hired rising star Dani Martin from Reed Smith as a partner to work alongside its new recruits from KWM’s European practice. Martin will work alongside funds heavyweight Steve Cowins and five other partners who moved to Greenberg as a team. Martin worked in the real estate team at Reed Smith and was promoted to partner in 2013. Her key clients include M7 Real Estate Limited, Starwood Capital, Trinity Investment Management, Goldman Sachs, Oaktree Capital. Last week Greenberg confirmed new clients for the firm include CBRE, Westfield and British Airways’ Pension Fund, following the team’s hire. 

Meanwhile Paul Hastings has also benefited from downfall of KWM’s European arm, with the hire of Jean-Louis Martin to its Paris real estate team.

Martin, who moves with associates Arielle Messawer, David Bensimon and Quentin Jobard, was head of real estate at KWM in Paris.

Paul Hastings chair Seth Zachary said: ‘His reputation with clients in the real estate and private equity funds sectors mirrors our own strengths in our European and global offices.’

Fieldfisher has appointed Thomas Lenné as a partner in its Brussels office. Lenné joins from Baker & McKenzie, bringing 11 years of experience in the private equity, construction, aviation, banking energy and TMT sectors.

A&O has announced the appointment of David Shen to its international Intellectual Property (IP) practice. He joins from AstraZeneca where he has held the role of general counsel for China. Shen, who will join A&O’s China practice, has a comprehensive background in patent litigation and regulatory and compliance issues related to the life sciences sector.

Weightmans has hired Helen Brown as partner for the firm’s local government team in Leeds, joining from Langleys. Brown was Langley’s deputy head of insurance law and head of the public sector unit.

Mitchell Holzrichter has re-joined Mayer Brown, being appointed as a partner in the government practice and global infrastructure group in Chicago. Holzrichter’s reunion with the firm comes after a tenure as deputy chief of staff for Illinois governor Bruce Rauner’s office. He had worked at Mayer Brown in the past, from 2008 to early 2015.

In in-house news, Airbnb has hired Fiona Dormandy as general counsel (GC) for the EMEA region. Dormandy who departed Betfair in March 2016, replaces former GC Aoife McArdle, who is director of business.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Greenberg reveals list of European relationships gained through KWM hires

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Strategic recruitment Greenberg TraurigKing & Wood Mallesons

Following the collapse of King & Wood Mallesons‘ (KWM) European arm last week and the lateral moves of all but 33 of its partners, Greenberg Traurig has confirmed CBRE, Westfield and British Airways’ Pension Fund have followed a six-strong group of former KWM partners to Greenberg as new clients.

Others in the list that Greenberg will now advise include Brockton, Cain Hoy, Europa Capital, M3 Capital, Paloma Capital, Revcap and Rockspring.

The group joined Greenberg in late December and includes real estate funds partners Steven Cowins and Marc Snell, real estate partner Matthew Priday, corporate finance partners Michael Goldberg and David Fitzgerald, and tax partner Clive Jones and their respective teams.

The Crown Estate, another one of Cowins’ (pictured) key clients, announced earlier this month that following a review process last year it has given Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) the sole mandate for its £7bn Central London property portfolio. The Crown Estate has not been named as a new client by Greenberg.

Greenberg executive chairman Richard Rosenbaum said: ‘We are pleased to see that our strategy of delivering excellence and value in both real estate and funds across the firm attracted these top tier lawyers to our London office.’

‘We are of course excited that world class, sophisticated companies of this nature would choose to follow, and are committed to serving them as the very important clients they are,’ he added.

The list represents mostly clients that were brought on by Cowins, whilst some clients went to Greenberg through other team members.

According to Ashfords partner Sam Palmer, who as solicitor manager to legacy SJ Berwin’s administrators Quantuma has been dealing with the orderly transfer of client files since the practice went into administration, only around 5% of clients decide not to follow partners to their new firms and decide to take their work in progress elsewhere.

While Greenberg is adding to its books, Quantuma released their first interim report to creditors earlier this week. This concluded that partner exits accelerated the demise of legacy SJ Berwin practice, and begins an investigation into the firm’s previous financial practices.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

KWM exits continue as DLA and Greenberg pick up teams

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Strategic recruitment DLA PiperGreenberg TraurigKing & Wood Mallesons
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DLA Piper and Greenberg Traurig are the latest to benefit from a swathe of exits at King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) European arm.

DLA Piper will take on real estate partner William Naunton (pictured) and several members of his team including partners Cornelius Medvei, Bryan Pickup, Ed Page, George Burrha and Jeremy Brooks. Managing associate Omer Maroof will also join as a partner. They join alongside eight other lawyers and three trainees, and are expected to join DLA mid-January.

Naunton is a significant biller for KWM, having billed almost £4m for the firm in the last year. When he joined KWM alongside Clive Jones and former Eversheds partner Cornelius Medvei in late 2014, the team was seen as key to KWM’s aim to expand its structured, high-end real estate offering. On joining DLA, he will become co-head of the UK real estate group.

However, Jones will join Greenberg Traurig. Alongside Jones the US firm also hired private equity funds partners Steven Cowins and Marc Snell, M&A partners Michael Goldberg and David Fitzgerald and partner Matthew Priday along with their teams.

Cowins is one of KWM’s top billers, having joined SJ Berwin in 2005. He specialises in real estate funds and joint ventures and counts Crown Estate among his clients. Goldberg and Priday focus on commercial real estate investment and have British Land on their client roster.

These are the latest in a long line of defects from KWM’s European business; heavyweight biller Michael Halford has last month joined Goodwin Procter with the other funds partners Ajay Pathak, Ed Hall, Shawn D’Aguiar and Patrick Deasy.

Corporate finance partner Andrew Wingfield and former managing partner Rob Day joined Proskauer Rose. The pair’s resignation, along with Halford’s exit and Jonathan Pittal also handing in his notice caused KWM to halt its recapitalisation plans in October. The firm has since failed in its plans to restabilise the business, and is expected to enter administration in January 2017.

Former KWM managing partner William Boss was hired earlier this month by Addleshaw Goddard, alongside Simon Tager and Michael Scott. Meanwhile former senior partner Stephen Kon confirmed last week he would retire from the law.

Another firm in talks with a number of partners is Reed Smith, while KWM’s own Asian arm is trying to secure a European presence through an office spin-off. Although it had expressed interest in a merger deal, Dentons has since pulled out of discussions.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

For more on King & Wood Mallesons, subscribers can read ‘Branded’ for an in-depth look at the firm. 

Legal Business

With one hand they give… Greenberg promotes Maher but the name goes in London

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It was an unusual gesture when Greenberg Traurig put Paul Maher’s name in the title of its London practice, even for one of the City’s best known deal lawyers, but the Florida-bred giant has confirmed that it is dropping Maher from its City brand.

The move comes in a governance shake-up that sees Maher elevated to global vice chair at Greenberg Traurig. Maher, who had quit a senior role at his nearly namesake Mayer Brown to launch the US firm’s London arm in 2009 under the name Greenberg Traurig Maher, takes on one of three new vice chair roles. The new management roles were created earlier in the year, when Brian Duffy replaced Richard Rosenbaum as chief executive, but had not been filled until now. Rosenbaum moved to executive chairman on 1 January 2016.

Maher – regarded as one of the City’s most driven deal lawyers – told Legal Business: ‘It’s time. It lasted longer than I thought it would. It was a transitional thing. It was my decision and it’s the right decision. I’ve got my name back!’

Greenberg said in a statement that the name change is ‘intended to emphasise the unified and collaborative nature of the firm in today’s world’.

The changes follow Greenberg Traurig’s annual mid-year leadership meeting, and see Maher’s fellow co-chair of the global corporate and securities practice, Patricia Menéndez-Cambó, and New York litigation chair Richard Edlin also made global vice chairs.

Rosenbaum said: ‘When we created the executive chairman role, we contemplated adding vice chairs who would assist with the firm’s strategic direction as well as high-level selling and recruiting, while they continue to lead their busy legal practices.’

The tweaks in London come after Greenberg held much-publicised merger talks with Berwin Leighton Paisner earlier this year, which were abandoned. Greenberg currently has nearly 50 lawyers based in London.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Comment: The tiger that came to eat BLP’s culture for breakfast and other sorry tales

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Comment Berwin Leighton PaisnerGreenberg Traurig
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These are tough times for another house that Stanley Berwin built, with exhibit B being the acrimonious end of merger talks between Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Greenberg Traurig. While the practice fit between the two looked both convincing and distinctive, these were two firms with plenty of strong characters.

Summing up the prospect of the proposed deal recently, Legal Business noted that proceeding with a union would be holding ‘the proverbial tiger by the tail’. So it quickly proved, as on 16 March the pair officially called time on the discussions amid some discontent from the US firm, which was unhappy at the messages being put out by BLP at the end of the talks.

It was the US firm that walked away, in part because it saw the merger as too heavily weighted towards real estate, but there was a more personal breakdown in chemistry as well. This dynamic was amplified in a 538-word statement issued by Greenberg’s executive chair Richard Rosenbaum, which aside from noting that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ drowned its former suitor in faint praise beyond some warm words for BLP’s real estate team.

The US firm subsequently indicated it was generally unimpressed with BLP’s management and handling of the talks. It was a substantial break from the well-established protocols for bland post-talks flannel law firms usually adhere to. But given the iconoclastic, thrusting style for which Greenberg is well known, such an outcome was hardly a shock.

The bigger issue for BLP is where to go from here. Not because merger talks with one suitor went nowhere – that’s just business – but because the firm has committed itself to a real estate-heavy strategy that looks very hard to execute without a US merger and because BLP is still an institution uncomfortable in its skin.

What was once one of the most assured mid-tier players in the City – indeed, through the 2000s BLP was one of the most influential law firms outside the Magic Circle – has been beset by conflicting views and factions since its troubled 2012/13 year. The use of guaranteed pay deals for lateral hires has now taken on a symbolic weight beyond all proportion to its historic use at the firm for those who see the tactic as evidence of an ‘us and them’ culture.

While financial performance has more than stabilised in the last two years, it’s not apparent that has been enough to heal its divisions or how credible it is to regroup around real estate once again after more than a decade of talking up its transactional business.

BLP has a lot going for it still but so do many other major UK law firms that have spent the last ten years drifting unhappily. BLP made its reputation by standing out during the 2000s against a backdrop of underwhelming City peers.

It is now competing against a range of mid-pack players that are some of the strongest performers in the UK. It will need to find a message to galvanise the whole firm.

alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘Not enough common ground’ – BLP and Greenberg call off transatlantic merger bid

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Legal mergers Berwin Leighton PaisnerGreenberg Traurig
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It promised to create a property and disputes giant across the Atlantic and one of the most distinctive law firms in the global market but in the end the mooted union between Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Greenberg Traurig has been called off.

The talks, which the pair confirmed in February, had enjoyed substantial support in BLP’s muscular real estate practice and had been cited as a means of the City firm achieving its strategy of being the world’s leading property and infrastructure adviser.

BLP managing partner Lisa Mayhew confirmed to Legal Business on Wednesday (16 March) that the merger discussions had ended. Mayhew (pictured) commented: ‘There was no one single thing. There was enough there to warrant proper consideration but in the final analysis there just wasn’t enough common ground to progress the conversation further.’

A deal would have created a firm with 2,700 lawyers and revenues of over a £1bn. Both firms had already made it clear that a deal would have involved full financial integration, which would have led to challenges over unifying their accounting and compensation systems.

There is a gap in profitability between the two firms. PEP at Greenberg stood at $1.424m in 2014, against £661,000 ($1.090m) for the UK firm’s 2014-15 year.

However, Mayhew said that the challenge of putting together Greenberg’s more individualistic partner pay model with BLP’s modified lockstep was not the deal-breaker, adding: ‘There wasn’t one single killer issue.’

However, Greenberg has said that it ultimately walked away from a merger because of its belief that ‘culture eats strategy for lunch’ and its ‘conservative approach to financial risk’.

In a statement, executive chairman Richard Rosenbaum said: ‘Greenberg Traurig is a substantially larger and more diversified firm than BLP. We therefore maintain much broader practice priorities. The core real estate practice which first attracted us is indeed impressive, as are other BLP practices, and we have a great deal of respect for the firm as a whole. Real estate is, of course, a core practice and one of our strongest brands, along with litigation and corporate (M&A, private equity, capital markets, finance), which are our largest areas… For Greenberg Traurig, it was quite exciting to enhance our practices, but not at the risk of materially diluting our cultural, financial and other priorities. This is what our diligence has been all about.’

‘After spending a substantial amount of personal time on this opportunity, visiting nearly every location and meeting so many fine BLP partners, I must admit to some regret in this decision.  But in the final analysis, we are a business. However exciting, we do not grow for growth’s sake and we do not ‘fall in love’ with a story or act on emotion; we run a disciplined operation, and will continue to run it and achieve our stated goals for the benefit of the many families who are dependent on us every day.  We have added many shareholders, practices and offices in the last months and years and must intensely focus on integration and execution, including our continued build-out of a first class London office of an appropriate size in today’s world and the number one global real estate practice.’

The end of the talks leave the thorny strategic issue for BLP of whether to pursue another substantive tie-up in the US as some partners believe the UK law firm should do. Mayhew said BLP retains an open mind on the point but was committed to its ambitious strategy.

alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk

For further comment on the pitfalls hampering merger discussions between BLP and Greenberg Traurig, see Merging BLP and Greenberg Traurig – unique, compelling, bloody difficult

Legal Business

Comment: Merging BLP and Greenberg Traurig – unique, compelling, bloody difficult

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Legal mergers Berwin Leighton PaisnerGreenberg Traurig
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In the age of the anodyne corporate law firm, you can at least say a marriage of Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Greenberg Traurig would be a distinct beast. If the talks are successful, it would be the first major international deal built on the foundation of real estate.

It would also be the first financially integrated US/UK tie-up of any consequence for years, given that the pair have ruled out a verein-based semi-merger. Both points look in favour of the marriage: there is a place in the global legal market for a real estate-heavy player and on the evidence of the last five years, the multi-profit centre unions have been indifferent performers.

But putting these two together will be grabbing the proverbial tiger by the tail. Both entrepreneurial and individualistic outfits, there is the additional complication of combining the Greenberg Traurig Maher London operation, itself not short of robust characters. Greenberg has long been regarded as one of the most thrusting major firms in the US, deploying an aggressive lateral hire programme to drive expansion beyond its Florida heartlands. Former chief executive Cesar Alvarez once memorably summed up its no-nonsense culture: ‘Everyone likes to argue about the intangible value that they contribute. But I say: “If you want to be rewarded for intangible value, then there’s a hug – that’s intangible.”‘

Still, Greenberg’s been much less expansive than during the 2000s. The firm launched in London to much fanfare with the recruitment of M&A veteran Paul Maher in 2009, but despite substantial hiring, the practice has yet to challenge bigger firms in the Square Mile. For the five years to the end of the 2010 financial year, Greenberg has hardly been in growth mode, with revenues growing just 8% to $1.27bn, even having absorbed a sizeable team from Dewey & LeBoeuf. After relatively modest progress internationally in recent years, Greenberg did last summer make a well-regarded move with the recruitment of a profitable 14-partner team in Germany from Olswang.

BLP, of course, has faced its own reverses, most notably during a torrid 2012/13 that saw its profitability plummet amid over-expansion and controversial use of guarantees. Scars from that period and a subsequent restructuring have endured and were in evidence in a bruising, factional managing partner contest that saw Lisa Mayhew defeat David Collins last year. While the firm spent much of the 2000s talking up its corporate and banking practices, its real estate practice is now more dominant than ever.

Real estate is unsurprisingly positive about the deal, as is the firm’s disputes practice (litigation is Greenberg’s largest business generator). Some are predicting considerable ructions in BLP’s transactional business if the union goes ahead. Also interesting would be the mood at BLP’s much-touted Lawyers On Demand (LOD), which has just secured its first major deal after last month agreeing a merger with Australian business AdventBalance; the fast-growing LOD has in recent years appeared to want more distance from its parent.

Should the deal not go ahead, BLP is left with the challenge of trying to achieve its current strategy of being the world’s top real estate and infrastructure law firm, an aim that looks near impossible to fulfil without something substantive in the US. Some believe that a US deal is the end game.

However this pans out, for BLP this is a going to be quite a show in the next few years. A BLP/Greenberg merger looks compelling on practice and geographic fit, but this is one deal where the challenge won’t be bridging different cultures – it’s what they have in common.

alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

Strong turnover growth in the City as Greenberg Traurig posts 4% revenue rise ahead of potential BLP merger

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Revenue at Berwin Leighton Paisner’s US suitor – Greenberg Traurig – rose 4% to $1.32bn last year as merger talks edge closer.

Turnover was up by around $50m on the $1.27bn the Miami giant generated in 2014, with profits per equity partner (PEP) rising 4% to $1.475m.

Revenue at Greenberg Traurig Maher, the London arm of US giant Greenberg Traurig, rose 10% to £15.7m in 2015 following a string of blockbuster corporate mandates.

The London office was instructed by engineers GKN on its £499m purchase of acquisition of Netherlands-based Fokker Technologies from private equity house Arle Capital, pest control company Rentokil on its $425m acquisition of US rival Steritech and Nomad Holdings on its €2.6bn deal for Iglo Foods, Europe’s biggest frozen foods business and the company behind the Birds Eye brand.

Around 70% of the London arm’s revenue is self-generated work, largely built around corporate and equity capital markets work, with the rest coming from referrals across the Greenberg network.

London head Paul Maher (pictured), who launched the office in 2009 after arriving from Mayer Brown, told Legal Business: ‘Core to our development has been ECM and M&A. Competition and real estate also had good years. We’re exporting so if we’re doing deals for, say, GKN, half of the work is done elsewhere. As we are run on a cash basis, any work done in Amsterdam goes to Amsterdam.’

Maher added: ‘I wanted to build a 100+ lawyer law firm in London. The team over the first six years has done very well. Organic growth is just as hard as a merger. If, and it’s a big if, we do [merge with BLP] then it’s just the next stage of the journey. We are going to get bigger whatever happens.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

BLP targets full financial integration with Greenberg Traurig as merger edges closer

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Legal mergers Berwin Leighton PaisnerGreenberg Traurig
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As City firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) closes in on its landmark transatlantic merger with Miami giant Greenberg Traurig, the firms have targeted full financial integration.

While most transatlantic unions between law firms result in Swiss verein structures that separate the profit pools shared out between the two partnerships, BLP’s managing partner Lisa Mayhew (pictured) said a merger between it and Greenberg ‘would be full financial integration’. The talks also include Greenberg Traurig Maher, the US firm’s London arm run by corporate heavyweight Paul Maher.

With merger talks having been ongoing for at least four months, Mayhew has lead the discussions for BLP with Greenberg’s executive chairman Richard Rosenbaum. Should the merger be put to a vote, BLP would require 75% of the partnership to approve the combination.

Mayhew told Legal Business: ‘We’ve set ourselves two main targets. First, we want to be a game-changing law firm. We have a strong history of innovation and we want that to continue and set ourselves apart from the competition in the way we deliver and provide services. Secondly, we’ve set ourselves a target to be the world’s number one real estate and infrastructure firm. BLP is performing well, so we’d only do this merger if it expedited our strategic aims.’

With the US by far the world’s largest legal market, and BLP absent of any presence in the Americas, a tie-up with real estate heavy Greenberg would accelerate that plan.

BLP’s three core sectors, as laid out by Mayhew who undertook a strategic review after taking the top job last spring, are financial services, private wealth and energy and natural resources. The firm’s real estate group, which has driven growth in recent years under the leadership of practice head Chris de Pury, has so far achieved the best penetration among those sectors and is expected to benefit the most from a merger with Greenberg.

Real estate is core to both firms, with the practice contributing around 30% of BLP’s revenue, and Greenberg employing more than 300 property lawyers globally.

Another heavily talked of benefit from the potential merger is the addition of BLP’s well-regarded international disputes team to Greenberg’s team in the States. Despite Greenberg’s disputes practice in the US being its biggest revenue generator, the firm refers all its contentious work outside the US to other firms as it has no overseas disputes presence.

Some of the obstacles to overcome in the merger talks include easing concerns among Greenberg’s US partners that BLP’s London headquarters, home to 600 lawyers, would become the combined firm’s largest office.

The plan for full financial integration is ambitious and creates some issues. A frequent headache in transatlantic law firm merger discussions, Greenberg operates on a cash accounting system favoured by many US law firms, while BLP operates on a more complex accrual basis. The difference is that Greenberg only reports cash when it comes in the door, whereas BLP records cash when it is received but reports in the period the payments relate to.

BLP remains underweight internationally, with around 75% of its lawyers based in the City, whereas Greenberg has 39 offices around the world but has had an uneven impact on the City market since launching in 2009 with the arrival of Maher. Greenberg’s London office has about 50 lawyers.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

‘An absolute match’: Former Mayor Giuliani to join Greenberg Traurig in New York

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Former New York Mayor and the face of Bracewell & Giuliani, Rudolph Giuliani (pictured), is leaving the firm for Greenberg Traurig as the latter firm moves to bolster its crisis management and white collar practices.

Giuliani, who founded Bracewell & Giuliani’s New York office a decade ago, joins Greenberg as global chair of the firm’s cybersecurity and crisis management practice and will become senior adviser to Greenberg executive chairman Richard Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum said the appointment will bring to the firm Giuliani’s unparalleled experience in all areas of legal problem-solving and crisis management, as well as his unique geopolitical insights.

He added: ‘While many other firms hold on to old business models or follow strategies premised on global growth for growth’s sake, for years we have focused on maintaining our uniquely empowering and collaborative, one-firm culture while delivering elite quality in our core practices along with extraordinary value not possible in traditional elite firms.’

Giuliani said he looked forward to joining a firm which addressed the complex needs of multinational clients.

‘This comes at a time when my practice and Greenberg’s particular focus on cybersecurity and related counseling, investigations and litigation is an absolute match. Data privacy and security risks are on the top of the mind of every chief executive, general counsel and corporate board I speak with, and Greenberg is clearly positioned as a top-tier and highly sophisticated player in this space.’

Greenberg announced Giuliani’s appointment along with the hire of prosecutor Marc Mukasey who will serve as global co-chair of the firm’s white collar defense practice. Mukasey had worked at Bracewell & Giuliani alongside the former mayor for more than a decade, and was recently lead trial counsel for executives in the Countrywide mortgage fraud trial. He has also defended one of the three Nomura executives facing charges over mortgage-backed securities, acted on the Deepwater Horizon blowout and major league baseball steroid investigations.

Meanwhile, Houston-based Bracewell & Giuliani will become Bracewell from now onward. The firm’s managing partner Mark Evans said: ‘Our New York office and our white collar practice will continue to have tremendous leadership through our long-time New York managing partner, Daniel Connolly, who joined the firm with Rudy in 2005, and has substantial prosecutorial experience.’

victoria.young@legalease.co.uk