Legal Business

Deal Watch: European acquisitions generate big-ticket roles for Latham, Bakers and Bonelli

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Corporate Baker McKenzieBonelliEredeLatham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins, Baker McKenzie, Clifford Chance (CC) and Allen & Overy (A&O) have lined up alongside a group of top independents in two multi-billion euro deals as Europe’s M&A scene maintains its brisk 2018 form.

Latham advised Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) on the €1.94bn acquisition of Italian railway operator Italo – Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (Ntv). The deal means the only privately-owned high-speed rail operator in Europe has shifted to American control after shelving plans to float on the Milan stock exchange. The Rome-based group is the country’s second-largest railway operator after state-backed Ferrovie dello Stato.

Latham London partner David Walker (pictured), Italy managing partner Antonio Coletti and Milan partners Stefano Sciolla and Giovanni Sandicchi acted for the US investment fund as it acquired 100% of the group. Slaughter and May’s local ally BonelliErede advised the seller led by partners Carlo Montagna and Elena Busson.

The deal generated roles for a number of major Italian law firms, with Nctm also advising Italo-Ntv with a team headed by Sante Ricci and Lukas Plattner, while Chiomenti’s Francesco Tedeschini and Andrea Sacco Ginevri acted for shareholder Allegro. Pedersoli advised debt provider Intesa Sanpaolo, fielding a team under Carlo Pedersoli.

BonelliErede had previously advised Italo-Ntv as the company announced plans for an IPO by the end of February. Shearman & Sterling and Italy’s Lombardi Segni & Associati were also advising on the proposed floatation, which had received the backing of the country’s minister of economy and finances Pier Carlo Padoan. However, Italo’s stakeholders decided to accept GIP’s bid after the fund raised its initial €1.9bn offer on Wednesday (7 February) last week.

The deal sees foreign investors return to Italy for big-ticket deals after last year’s €50bn merger of French Essilor International and Italian Luxottica Group. Going the other way, Italy’s Atlantia is involved in a bid battle with Germany’s Hochtief to acquire Spanish toll road operator Albertis.

Moving to Northern Europe, Bakers, CC and A&O have advised on the $6.7bn takeover of Danish phone carrier TDC by a consortium including Australian infrastructure leader Macquarie and three local pension funds.

As interest in telecom assets grows from investors, the consortium aims to restructure TDC to create two separate infrastructure and consumer-facing businesses.

Bakers’ London corporate partners Tim Sheddick and James Thompson acted for longstanding client Macquarie. Plesners provided Danish law advice to the consortium, which also included local pension funds PFA, PKA and ATP.  CC advised the consortium on debt financing.

A&O London partner Jonathan Brownson led the team advising the lenders alongside partners Matt Moore and Jake Keaveny. Horten provided Danish law advice to the lenders with its head of banking and financing Claus Bennetsen leading. Danish leader Kromann Reumert advised TDC.

marco.cillario@legalease.co.uk

For more analysis of Italy’s legal market see Legal Business’s latest issue with the piece ‘Letter from… Milan’ (£)

Legal Business

‘Incredibly strong’ – debt counsel gear up for another boom year in leveraged finance

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Finance Latham & Watkins

Nathalie Tidman finds lawyers bemused by crazy pricing and a wall of debt

‘Short of Trump nuking North Korea, I can’t see any immediate problems on the horizon,’ reflects Latham & Watkins partner Christopher Kandel. It is safe to say finance advisers believe the recent bonanza of European leveraged finance activity will continue through 2018 on the back of another record year for the European market.

Legal Business

Latham and SH cheer as latest silk round bountiful for Red Lion and Garden Court

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The Bar Garden Court ChambersLatham & WatkinsRed Lion ChambersStephenson Harwood

Arbitrators dominate solicitor appointments amid creation of 119 new silks as Latham does double

Red Lion Chambers and Garden Court Chambers saw six and five of their respective barristers take silk in this year’s QC appointments round, while the number of successful solicitors becoming QCs dipped from last year.

Legal Business

‘Dynamic and entrepreneurial’ – Latham taps Hogan Lovells for disputes partner duo

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Litigation Latham & Watkins

The march of US advisers into the City’s disputes scene continues with Latham & Watkins today (16 January) announcing the hire of two litigation partners from Hogan Lovells.

The London-based partners, Jon Holland and Andrea Monks, focus on financial services litigation and related regulatory work, two of the most in-demand practices areas currently.

Holland had been at Hogan Lovells for more than 30 years, most recently as co-head of its financial services litigation team, alongside the New York-based Marc Gottridge. Holland has advised banks and financial institutions on a series of high-profile disputes. He is also qualified in Hong Kong – where he worked for nearly four years – and in Australia, as well as being a solicitor advocate in the UK.

Monks has a particular focus on contentious regulatory investigations, and advises banks and corporates in the regulated sector on anti-money laundering matters. She also has substantial general disputes experience.

The hires underline the substantial investments that US-bred advisers have made in contentious work in London in the last five years, a drive underlined by this week’s announcement by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan that it dramatically increased its UK revenues during 2017.

While Latham has conducted more high profile recruitment in its City deal and leveraged finance practices, it has steadily expanded its UK disputes practice in recent years. Notably, Sophie Lamb, the arbitration star recruited in 2016 from Debevoise & Plimpton, last month became one of the youngest solicitors to ever become a QC in the latest silk round alongside fellow partner Philip Clifford.

‘Jon and Andrea have extensive experience in big-ticket litigation and are deeply connected to many of the City’s leading financial institutions,’ said Stuart Alford QC, co-chair of Latham’s litigation and trial department in London. ‘They are dynamic and entrepreneurial practice-builders and will add further strength to our litigation practice in London.’

Rich Trobman (pictured), vice chair of Latham, described the hires as ‘a further sign of our commitment to be the market-leading firm advising financial institutions on their most sophisticated transactions and complex disputes in Europe and globally’.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

DLA Piper chief Picón joins Latham in shock move as Ropes names first female chair

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Strategic recruitment DLA PiperLatham & Watkins

In a move that set tongues wagging on both sides of the pond, DLA Piper senior partner and global co-chair Juan Picón is to depart for Latham & Watkins, while Ropes & Gray has selected its first-ever female chair to replace the long-serving Bradford Malt.

Picón’s move to the highest-grossing firm in the world from the one that used to hold that position was fuelled by his desire to spend more time in his native Spain. As such, Picón will take over the role of Latham’s managing partner in the country following the retirement of predecessor José Luis Blanco. He joins at the end of the year from DLA’s Madrid office, bringing corporate partners Ignacio Gómez-Sancha and José Antonio Sánchez-Dafos with him.

Legal Business

Latham, Ropes and Travers get physical as US buyout house takes control of PureGym in the UK

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Corporate Latham & WatkinsRopes & GrayTravers Smith

Leonard Green acquires gym chain for £600m

2017 has continued to provide rich pickings for firms with marquee private equity practices on either side of the Atlantic, with Latham & Watkins, Ropes & Gray and Travers Smith leading as US private equity house Leonard Green & Partners announced its £600m acquisition of PureGym from buyout firm CCMP Capital Advisors in November.

Legal Business

Global Elite advise Siemens on €40bn German IPO of medical division

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Corporate Latham & WatkinsLinklatersSullivan & Cromwell

Latham & Watkins, Linklaters and Sullivan & Cromwell are all advising as German conglomerate Siemens plans to list its €40bn medical technology unit in what will be one of the largest IPOs in the country since Deutsche Telekom floated for €13bn in 1996.

The listing is slated for the first half of 2018 on the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and will see Siemens create Siemens Healthineers, a spin-off of the company’s medical technology business. After the listing, Siemens will become the new company’s most significant shareholder.

Siemens’ medical technology division is the largest contributor of revenue to the business, achieving sales of €13.8bn in the 2016/17 business year.

The Latham team advising longstanding client Siemens is led by Frankfurt capital markets partner Oliver Seiler alongside Munich corporate partner Rainer Traugott. Hamburg corporate partner Dirk Kocher, Düsseldorf corporate partner Nikolaos Paschos, Hamburg regulatory partner Christoph Engeler and Munich tax partner Thomas Fox make up the Magic Circle firm’s German team. In London, capital markets partner David Boles also advised for Latham.

Linklaters is representing Siemens Healthineers on the IPO, spearheaded by Düsseldorf corporate partner Ralph Wollburg with support from Frankfurt capital markets partner Marco Carbonare. US firm Sullivan & Cromwell is acting for a consortium of banks including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan. The firm’s team comprises Frankfurt capital market partners Carsten Berrar and  Krystian Cznerniecki.

For Latham it is a second major instruction by Siemens in a year, as the firm advised the company on its $4.5bn acquisition of US software provider Mentor Graphics in November 2016 .

The transaction saw Latham field a 15-partner team, led by New York corporate partners Adel Aslani-Far and Eli Hunt, alongside New York partner Jim Gorton and London employment and pensions partner Catherine Drinnan. Traugott, who is acting on the IPO, also advised.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Promotion time: Latham keeps City round at two as new partners focused on Big Apple

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Partnership promotions Latham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins may have been aggressively sweeping up City talent from rivals but the US-based giant is remaining conservative on making up its own in the Square Mile with the firm this week confirming the promotion of two partners in London.

Charles Armstrong in finance and corporate specialist Huw Thomas have been appointed to partnership in the firm’s City office, with the duo coming amid a 31-strong global promotion round. Latham also promoted two partners in London in 2016 amid a firm-wide tally of 27.

Effective on 1 January 2018, the majority were made up in its US heartlands, with 24 minted across the firm’s branches in San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Century City, Chicago, Los Angeles and seven partners promoted in New York alone.

Europe saw three corporate lawyers promoted in Dusseldorf (Natalie Daghles); Milan (Giancarlo D’Ambrosio), and Moscow (Olga Ponomarenko). In Asia the firm promoted in the local corporate teams in Tokyo (Nozomi Oda) and Singapore (Marcus Lee). Almost half of the promotions were in corporate, which saw 14 associates promoted, followed by 11 in litigation. Eleven of this year’s round were women, against just four in 2016.

Jennifer Van Driesen, chair of the 2,300-lawyer firm’s associate committee, said the promotions were ‘the culmination of many years of effort, team play, proven leadership, and achievements by this group of lawyers’.

Other prominent US firms showed a clearer London focus in their promotion rounds this year, with Kirkland & Ellis appointing 13 new partners in its City arm and White & Case seven.

Launched in 1990, Latham’s London office is the fifth largest based on number of fee earners among US players according to Legal Business’s Global London 2017 survey, with 329 lawyers, including 76 partners. But despite a relatively conservative run of partner promotions in the Square Mile, there is no doubt that Latham is regarded as one of the most potent competitors in the City thanks its sustained investment.

marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

For more on Latham’s track record in the City, see this month’s cover feature ‘The Departed’ (£)

Legal Business

US firms lead in Europe as Franco-German merger creates new rail giant

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Dealwatch Cleary Gottlieb Steen & HamiltonLatham & Watkins

Latham and Cleary advise as Siemens and Alstom combine

US law firms took the lead as Siemens agreed to combine its transport operations with former rival Alstom in a merger of equals to counter the threat from China to the European railway industry.

Legal Business

Keeping home fires burning – DLA Piper chief Picón to join Latham & Watkins in Spain

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Strategic recruitment Latham & Watkins

Moving to the highest-grossing firm in the world from one that used to hold that position, DLA Piper senior partner and global co-chair Juan Picón has left for Latham & Watkins less than two years into his term to spend more time in his native Spain.

He will take over the role of Latham’s managing partner in Spain following the retirement of predecessor José Luis Blanco. He joins from DLA’s own office in Madrid, alongside fellow DLA corporate partners Ignacio Gómez-Sancha and José Antonio Sánchez-Dafos.

Latham chair Bill Voge described the team’s arrival as ‘a perfect complement to our existing practice.’ He added: ‘The team’s market knowledge and industry contacts are second to none. Spain is a key market with exciting opportunities in our global platform.’

Simon Levine, DLA’s global co-chief executive and a friend of Picón, said that the firm was ‘disappointed’ at Picón’s decision to leave before completing his term as senior partner but ‘we recognise the unique personal circumstances that have led him to make this decision’.

Speaking to Legal Business earlier this year, Picón said: ‘Last year I spent 220 days outside Spain. Not a lot of time with the family. I am old enough now to know that I would do things differently if I started again and I try to convey that to the younger generation. You can be a successful lawyer and organise yourself in a different way.’

Veteran dispute resolution partner Janet Legrand will take over his duties at DLA on an interim basis until a senior partner election takes place.

Picón, who first joined DLA in 2006 from Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, had been elected senior partner in March 2016 after running uncontested. He replaced long-time leader Sir Nigel Knowles, who joined DWF this summer as the firm’s chair.

He was one of DLA’s biggest billers and during his time he strengthened the firm’s relationship with Vodafone after being instructed on its €7.2bn acquisition of Spanish broadband company Ono.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

For a personal take on Juan Picón’s career and personal life, read ‘Life during law: Juan Picón, DLA Piper’