Legal Business

Ashurst blow as King & Spalding secures four-partner team for Tokyo launch

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Strategic recruitment AshurstKing & Spalding
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King & Spalding has chosen Tokyo as its second base in Asia, hiring a team of Ashurst partners led by Tokyo managing partner John McClenahan to spearhead its launch.

The US firm has hired Ashurst partners John McClenahan, Mark Davies and Chris Bailey in Tokyo, and Rupert Lewi from Perth, to form the core team and launch the firm’s Tokyo office.

Project finance specialist McClenahan will continue his management position into King & Spalding, serving as managing partner of the firm’s 18th office, and has 20 years’ of experience in the Japanese market. Energy partner Lewi, meanwhile, returns to the Japanese capital five years after co-founding what was then Blake Dawson’s Tokyo office. The Australian firm then merged with Ashurst in 2012. He previously spent 12 years in Tokyo as a foreign lawyer and has a book of utility company contacts in the country.

Project finance and M&A specialist Davies and arbitration partner Bailey have a decade of experience each in Japan. Bailey arrives with experience of major African and Middle Eastern corruption investigations before regulators including the US Department of Justice and the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.

Well-known in the Tokyo market, the group represent major Japanese and Korean energy firms and advise on related work with export credit agencies, trading houses and financial institutions. With King & Spalding eager to spread its energy advisory network, the four-partner team have experience financing and acquiring companies and settling disputes arising out of major energy projects.

‘We are excited to build a new office around a top-tier team with deep roots in the Japanese legal marketplace and expertise in energy, projects, finance, construction and international arbitration,’ said King & Spalding chairman Robert Hays. ‘Given our momentum globally, strategic focus on energy, the growth of energy and related activity in Asia-Pacific, and the opportunity to launch with an internationally recognized group, Tokyo presents a real opportunity for us.’

McClenahan added: ‘The King & Spalding name is a calling card in the energy and international arbitration space in Asia,” said. “As a platform for growth, we see this as a great opportunity for each of us and we are excited about collaborating with our new colleagues across the firm.’

King & Spalding has rapidly grown its Singapore offering since opening in 2010, expanding to 10 partners focused on power, oil and gas and international arbitration. Richard Nelson, the former head of the Southeast Asia energy practice at Herbert Smith Freehills and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom projects partner Simon Cowled have both arrived in the past year.

Ashurst announced yesterday that Robert Burrows will take over as managing partner in Tokyo as it also changed leadership in Hong Kong.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Listing in London – King & Spalding carries US biotech to AIM listing

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King & Spalding’s recent recruits in the City have helped handle Californian biotech company Verseon £300m stock market listing in London while Covington & Burling advised from San Francisco.

London corporate partners William Charnley and Tom O’Neill handled the listing on the Alternative Investment Market for the Californian company with support from partners in the US while Covington & Burling advised from San Francisco. K&L Gates’ London corporate chief Paul Tetlow advised Cenkos Securities, the nominated adviser and broker to Verseon. The move marked a turnaround from the stream of European drugs companies listing in the US to raise money for expansion.

US securities specialist O’Neill joined King & Spalding in November from Linklaters last year as part of the firm’s recent expansion in the City, which has continued into 2015 with the hire of Latham & Watkins’ former European vice chair of tax Daniel Friel in March and Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson’s London disputes head Nick Cherryman last month.

The listing gives Verseon a market capitalisation of £303m with it planning to use £61m to advance its current drug programmes, expand its drug pipeline into additional disease indications and develop its drug discovery platform.

The deal follows the work done by Markus Bauman, a US securities specialist who also arrived last November from Latham & Watkins, on mobile food ordering company Delivery Hero’s $589m purchase of Turkish peer Yemeksepeti which completed on Friday (8 May 2015). Bauman worked alongside Elisabeth Baltay who was brought in from Bingham McCutchen in October 2014.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Global London: King & Spalding hires Latham’s Daniel Friel as it builds City office

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King & Spalding has hired Latham & Watkins’ former European vice chair of tax Daniel Friel, the latest in a number of strategic hires over the last 12 months as it looks to grow its London offering.

Friel has been a partner at Latham since 2006, after joining from Lovells where he had been head of the firm’s international tax practice. It took him just two years to gain a management position at Latham and was appointed European vice chair of tax and benefits in 2008.

With over 20 years of experience advising on tax planning matters on M&A and financing work, Friel becomes King & Spalding’s third tax partner in London. He is most well-known for his work advising private equity clients and sovereign wealth funds, and counts Bain Capital, Carlyle, Qatar Investment Authority and Deutsche Bank as clients, as well as having worked for brewer SAB Miller, ITV and brothers Sir David and Frederick Barclay. He also has experience in handling tax disputes and tax investigations by HMRC.

Commenting on Friel’s arrival, Abraham Shashy, leader of King & Spalding’s tax practice group said: ‘His tax expertise and extensive experience in building European tax practices at his previous firms make him a natural fit to help expand our European tax practices in London, Frankfurt and Paris.’

Friel becomes the 21st partner in King & Spalding’s London office, which pulled in £26.4m in revenue during 2014. His arrival follows that of fellow Latham partner Markus Bauman, a capital markets specialist who is New York-qualified, in November last year.

King & Spalding have secured a number of high profile hires in the past 12 months, including the founder of Berwin Leighton Paisner’s advocacy unit Stuart Isaacs QC in January this year and Linklaters partner Thomas O’Neill in November last year. The firm also launched a restructuring practice at the end of last year with the hire of Elisabeth Baltay from Bingham McCutchen’s collapsed London office.

Friel started his career as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand, which later went on to become PwC.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

US financials 2014: King & Spalding breaks the $1m revenue per lawyer figure alongside 8% revenue boost

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King & Spalding is the latest US firm to post its financials for 2014, and has unveiled a respectable 8% increase in revenue to $934m from $861.4m, while it has notably surpassed the $1m revenue per lawyer threshold with a 7% rise to $1.055m for the first time in the firm’s history.

Revenue growth over the last five years represented an overall increase of $250m or 38%. Meanwhile, profit per equity partner enjoyed a 10% increase to $2.36m from $2.14m the year before, while over the last 5 years the firm saw PEP increase 60%, while growing the partnership 15% (scale and profitability).

Net income grew 14% in 2014 and has nearly doubled over five years from $218m in 2009 to $400m in 2014. Other notable stats includes the firm’s profit margin improving by 12% over five years from 30% to 42%.

Major instructions for the firm last year included securing an arbitration award of $506m plus interest against the Republic of Kazakhstan on behalf of Moldovan investors Anatolie and Gabriel Stati and their companies, Ascom SA and Terra Raf Trans Traiding, constituting the largest award under the Energy Charter Treaty and the third-largest treaty arbitration award in history.

It further advised Kuveyt Turk Katilim Bankasi, a leading Turkish participation bank, on the issuance of $500m senior unsecured certificates due 2019, and represented the Greek government on landmark agreements for the award of the first new oil and gas exploration leases in the country for nearly 20 years, with an estimated investment value of €700m.

US firms’ financials are continuing their positive trend, with recent releases showing revenue spikes and profit boosts including for Davis Polk & Wardwell and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison which both broke the billion-dollar mark in gross revenues last year.

For more analysis of the surging US market see: The blessed – unheralded, Wall Street’s elite comes roaring back

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Losing QCs: BLP’s plan to compete with the Bar hit by another advocacy exit

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Stuart Isaacs QC, the man brought in to lead Berwin Leighton Paisner‘s advocacy unit and compete with the Bar, has departed for King & Spalding.

Berwin Leighton Paisner launched its advocacy unit, to much fanfare, at the start of 2011. Isaacs was brought in to lead the unit, arriving from South Square barristers’ chambers, and his exit is the latest blow to an already depleted team.

Just last month, the brains behind the operation, head of arbitration Nicholas Fletcher QC, departed for 4 New Square. An influential board member, Fletcher launched the strategy to take disputes ‘from instruction to trial’.

The exit of two of the firm’s three Queen’s Counsel in just two months has hit that strategy hard with head of charities Janet Turner QC lacking experience with corporate work.

BLP said in a statement: ‘BLP will continue its focus on providing fully integrated dispute resolution services to its clients, including trial advocacy. We have nearly 30 solicitor advocates, partners who sit as arbitrators and part time as judges, and we have increasingly been conducting advocacy in International Arbitration particularly in London, Moscow, Abu Dhabi and Singapore. We intend to continue to build our team of senior trial lawyers/advocates.’

For King & Spalding, Isaacs becomes the firm’s second Queen’s Counsel this year, with head of arbitration Tom Sprange having been appointed as QC earlier this month. Isaacs has chaired the advocacy in over 200 commercial cases during a 30-year career and was the first London QC authorised by the Singapore Attorney General to practice as a foreign lawyer. He sits regularly as an arbitrator and is a deputy judge of the High Court of England and Wales.

Isaacs said that ‘King & Spalding has a superior disputes practice’ and announced that he plans to create the ‘one-stop-shop’ for disputes that BLP failed to realise. ‘I am glad to be partnering with King & Spalding’s talented, entrepreneurial team of lawyers who share my vision,’ he added.

He is the firm’s fourth partner hire in London since the start of October and the fourteenth disputes lawyer in the City office. King & Spalding hired capital markets duo Markus Bauman from Latham & Watkins and Tom O’Neill from Linklaters at the end of 2014. It also persuaded Bingham McCutchen restructuring partner Elisabeth Baltay to join King & Spalding rather than follow the exodus of that office to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld.

‘Stuart enhances our disputes offering in London and Europe, as well as in Asia, where he has a fantastic reputation,’ said Reggie Smith, global head of King & Spalding’s disputes group. ‘He will contribute significantly to developing new business in London and securing opportunities that require strong advocacy at trial.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Bringing a ‘new dimension’: King & Spalding hires Linklaters securities partner

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Linklaters’ partner Tom O’Neill has swapped Silk Street for Old Broad Street with King & Spalding making a double hire to anchor its capital markets practice in Europe.

A member of the New York Bar, O’Neill leaves Linklaters after 13 years as a partner. He specialises in corporate finance and securities offerings, representing issuers, sellers and underwriters in offerings of equity and debt securities.

He spent seven years in Linklaters Paris office before heading up the firm’s Turkey desk from London. He’s been involved in the £1.9bn privatisation of Royal Mail and the transactions for holiday retailer Thomas Cook Group and insurer Direct Line.

King & Spalding, which hired Bingham McCutchen’s London restructuring partner Elisabath Baltay last month, has also recruited Latham & Watkins New York-qualified counsel in capital markets Markus Bauman. The firm has brought him in as a partner in what marks a period of aggressive expansion for the firm. Bauman, who spent four years as executive director of Goldman Sachs’ investment banking legal department, joins after a recent spell in the debt capital markets legal department at JP Morgan.

‘Tom and Markus are strong additions to our corporate practice and bring us a new dimension,’ said Ray Baltz, head of corporate at King & Spalding. ‘Tom’s broad capital markets experience is a natural complement to the complex M&A, private equity and finance work we provide our clients, while Markus’s capital markets experience and his perspective as both in-house and outside counsel lend insight and depth to the firm’s growing European capital markets work.’

O’Neill added: ‘King & Spalding has a dynamic London office. We could not pass up the opportunity to work with the entire corporate team in London, New York and around the world to continue to build out the firm’s capital markets practice.’

Legal Business

Freshfields NY corporate partner joins King & Spalding as former Amsterdam chief joins boutique

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With Magic Circle firms still vowing to break ground in the US legal market, Manhattan-based corporate partner Matthew Jacobson has left Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and joined top-40 US firm King & Spalding while in the Netherlands, well-respected Robert ten Have has joined Rutgers & Posch.

Jacobson will work across King & Spalding’s New York and Silicon Valley offices to advise the firm’s clients and matters on the west coast.

Most recently, Jacobson was co-head of Freshfields’ technology sector group and a member of the firm’s India committee, with a particular focus on large, complex deals for public and private global companies.

Recent noteworthy deals include advising medical device manufacturer Invatec on the sale of its business to Medtronic for $500m; representing Chinese automaker Geely on its $1.8bn agreement with Ford to purchase Volvo; and advising CVC on its $4.4bn bid to purchase the ishares ETF business from Barclays Global Investors – although this was later terminated.

Jacobson joined the Magic Circle firm in May 2005, before which he was corporate counsel at Hewlett-Packard for five years, overseeing M&A activities, including the purchase and global restructuring of Compaq.

Jacobson is the fourth partner to join King & Spalding’s New York transactional practices in the past ten months, and joins debt finance partner Ellen Snare who joined from Kirkland & Ellis in March, and alternative investment specialist Drew Chapman who joined as a partner from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in May this year.

Jacobson said: ‘There is great momentum at King & Spalding. I look forward to working with all the partners, especially those in the California Silicon Valley office and in the healthcare/life sciences and energy groups.’

Freshfields has also lost the former head of its Amsterdam office, partner Robert ten Have, to Dutch boutique Rutgers & Posch. He will join on 1 September and continue to focus on capital market transactions, M&A and corporate governance. 

His departure follows that of another major Dutch heavyweight, partner Richard Norbruis, to big four accountancy giant EY in June 2014.

Jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

BLP’s head of banking and finance litigation defects to King & Spalding

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Strategic recruitment Berwin Leighton PaisnerKing & Spalding
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Hughes’ exit follows spate of departures from international firm

Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP)’s head of banking and finance litigation, David Hughes, is set to leave the firm to join the litigation team at King & Spalding.

Described by one former BLP partner as a ‘big-hitting litigator’, Hughes specialises in asset recovery (including ships and aircrafts) and security enforcement involving complicated capital markets products, as well as the enforcement of bond structures and International Swaps and Derivatives Association contracts. He also advises clients on fraud, financial irregularities and money laundering issues.

Legal Business

BLP’s head of banking and finance litigation exits to King & Spalding

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Strategic recruitment Berwin Leighton PaisnerKing & Spalding
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Berwin Leighton Paisner’s (BLP’s) head of banking and finance litigation David Hughes is set to leave the firm to join the litigation team at King & Spalding.

Said by one ex-BLP partner to be a ‘big hitting litigator’, Hughes specialises in asset recovery (including ships and aircrafts) and security enforcement involving complicated capital markets products, as well as the enforcement of bond structures and ISDA contracts. He also advises clients in relation to investigating fraud, financial irregularities and money laundering issues.

The banking litigation team at BLP is currently acknowledged by the Legal 500 as ‘excellent, particularly in terms of commercial awareness and appropriateness of advice.’

Hughes, who was previously national head of banking and finance litigation at DLA Piper between 1992 and 2005, is the latest in a series of lateral hires to King & Spalding’s London litigation team, following the arrival of Steptoe & Johnson’s Russia and CIS group co-head Egishe Dzhazoyan; fellow Steptoe partner Tom Sprange, and Bird & Bird duo Jane Player and Sarah Walker.

Hughes is also the latest high profile partner resignation from beleaguered BLP, following just weeks after real estate finance duo Andrew Flemming and Jo Solomon announced their departure for Hogan Lovells.

Those exits shortly follow BLP’s head of real estate finance Laurence Rogers’ resignation for DLA Piper alongside commercial real estate partner Richard Hopkinson-Woolley and corporate tax partner Neville Wright, who join former BLP corporate partner Patrick Somers.

Other recent departures from the top 20 UK firm include banking and capital markets partner Paul Simcock and former head of restructuring Ben Larkin, who joined Jones Day in March and February respectively; and acquisition finance partner Marcus Jamson, who joined Wedlake Bell in January.

A statement from King & Spalding today (16 April) said: ‘King & Spalding is continually on the lookout for talented lawyers whose careers and experience make them a good fit at the firm. Naturally, from time to time, we engage in direct discussions with these lawyers. However, as a matter of policy any such discussion is private, and we comment only when there is an official announcement.’

Update: BLP on 17 April announced the promotion of Oliver Glynn-Jones, a partner in the commercial dispute resolution group, to head of BLP’s banking litigation practice, effective 1 May 2014.

A statement from BLP said: ‘Oliver is currently acting in a number of significant and market leading cases for global investment banks including, for instance, issues resulting from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, including the Eurosail case which recently went to the Supreme Court, as well as acting for a number of other parties in securitisation programmes in resolving similar issues.’

 

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Trucking ahead – King & Spalding, Hill Dickinson and Minter Ellison advise on £280m Eddie Stobart majority stake sale

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Rare in the transport world for having its own television show, King & Spalding, Hill Dickinson and Minter Ellison have secured roles on the £280m sale of a majority stake in iconic UK haulage company Eddie Stobart, announced this week.

The sale by the Stobart Group to a group led by chief operating officer William Stobart, sees US top 40 Global 100 firm King & Spalding advise Stobart’s financial backers, DouglasBay Capital.

King & Spalding’s London team was led by corporate partner William Charnley, former managing partner of McDermott Will & Emery’s London office, who joined Mayer Brown in 2007 and later King & Spalding in 2012 as part of a series of lateral hires to build up its City capability. The deal team includes tax partner Kevin Conway and employment partner Pulina Whitaker.

Under the terms of the deal the Stobart Group will release 51% of holding company Eddie Stobart Logistics, comprising of £195.6m in cash, £44.1m in shares and around $41.1m in debt, allowing the company to repay some debt and return capital to shareholders.

Hill Dickinson advised long-standing client the Stobart Group, with a team led by Jonathan Brown. Brown previously advised the Stobart Group on its acquisition of James Irlam & Son for £60m in 2008.

William Stobart is being advised by Minter Ellison’s London corporate M&A partner Michael Wallin.

The Eddie Stobart brand began with individually named green trucks and drivers that must wave and honk their horn if waved to, and has grown to encompass its own Channel 5 television show, Trucks and Trailers.

However, the Stobart Group is reported by the Financial Times to be diversifying away from road haulage, and has widened its portfolio with acquisitions including Southend Airport in 2008 for £21m, and Carlisle Lake District Airport a year later for £9.9m. Hill Dickinson led by Brown advised the group on both those acquisitions. The group also operates a rail freight operation under the name of Stobart Rail.

Last year the group announced it would launch a law firm, One Legal, after being granted alternative business structure status by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The company also offers its clients direct access to a network of barristers for fixed fee.

david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk