Legal Business

Latham hires New York playmaker to bolster M&A team in significant loss for A&O

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Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryLatham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins has secured a senior hire from a Magic Circle competitor in New York, recruiting Allen & Overy (A&O) corporate veteran Peter Harwich.

Harwich specialises in advising public companies on complex public and private M&A transactions. He was established as one of A&O’s leading US deal advisers having handled $1bn-plus deals for Thomson Reuters, SAP, Deutsche Börse, Misys and GE.

He joins a list of high-profile M&A partners to sign up for Latham in recent months, including last year’s recruitment of A&O partner Ed Barnett in London and Linklaters’ Germany private equity head Rainer Traugott . Other senior hires have included Nikolaos Paschos in Düsseldorf and Aldo Piccarreta in Milan.

Latham’s global M&A co-chair David Allinson told Legal Business: ‘In New York we felt it would make sense to add some more bench strength. New York is still seen as one of the global centres of M&A. We never take on a lateral unless there’s a strategic reason. But Peter’s client-base of public companies and his strong skillset means he really fits the bill.’

With Harwich’s arrival, the firm’s New York office now consists of 17 M&A partners.

Harwich has previously acted opposite Latham on the $3.6bn transaction which saw Thomson Reuters’ intellectual property and science business sold to private equity houses Onex and Baring Private Equity Asia. Harwich acted for Thomson Reuters while Latham partners Paul Sheridan and Shaun Hartley advised Onex and Baring.

The departure underlines the challenge for leading London law firms of maintaining their New York practices in the face of more profitable US rivals. A&O, which outpaced its key London peers in 2016/17 with revenues up 16% and average partner profits rising by 25%, has cut a number of above-lockstep pay deals in the US in recent years to bolster its New York expansion.

Nevertheless, Latham’s PEP of $3.06m compares to A&O’s current tally of $2.04m, while the Los Angeles-bred giant is generally viewed as the most successful entrant to New York’s ultra-competitive legal market.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Trainee retention: Latham and Kirkland report contrasting City rates as Magic Circle firms start to post 2017 figures

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Trainee retention Kirkland & EllisLatham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins has managed to retain 95% of its City trainees in its latest round, contrasting with Kirkland & Ellis, which has kept on just over half of its cohort.

Meanwhile Allen & Overy (A&O) and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer posted their autumn trainee retention rates this week.

Latham has kept on 21 of the 22 trainees for 2017, strengthening its corporate, finance and litigation departments. Numbers have improved from last year when the US firm kept 17 of 20, or 85% of its trainees.

In contrast Kirkland’s City office only managed to retain 56% of its nine trainees this year, with the figure slipping significantly from its 100% retention rate at the same time in 2016 when it kept all seven trainees. However, Legal Business understand the firm made seven offers, of which five were accepted, with the low figure attributed to a heavy demand by trainees for NQ positions in the funds practice, which was over-subscribed.

This week A&O announced that it has kept 85% of its 47-strong intake this autumn, making offers to 41 lawyers with 40 accepting. Its trainee retention rate almost mirrors last year’s autumn results when the firm took on 86% of its intake of 42. Thirty-six people joined the firm after 38 offers were made.

Conversely, Freshfields has posted a lacklustre 66% retention rate this time, with 27 lawyers taking up offers at the firm from a group of 41. The firm offered 29 roles to individuals. Last September, the firm kept on 95% of its trainees with 40 lawyers remaining at the firm after it brought on 42 trainees.

Slaughter and May has posted the most impressive retention rate of the Magic Circle so far, keeping 91% of its group of 32 autumn trainees. Offers were made to 30 individuals with 29 accepting positions at the firm. This is slightly down on 2016 when 34 offers were made for positions with 32 accepted, giving it a retention rate of 89%.

A statement by the firm said: ‘Our overall retention rate was again in line with previous years. We remain encouraged by our consistently high retention rates and are confident that all these talented lawyers will make a strong contribution to the firm.’

Elsewhere Pinsent Masons has taken on the largest contingent of trainees, with 67 taking up trainee roles at the firm in autumn, rate of 74%. Eighty four of the 91-strong trainee intake applied for NQ positions with the rapidly-expanding Global 100 firm.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Latham swoops on Quinn Emanuel for high-profile financial regulatory hire Berman

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Strategic recruitment Latham & WatkinsQuinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

Latham & Watkins has appointed head of financial services and regulatory David Berman from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s London office, returning to the firm for the recruit six months after hiringlitigation partner Martin Davies.

Berman only joined Quinn in January this year and was previously Macfarlanes head of financial services regulation and a partner for nearly eight years. In his early career, he was a managing director at an global investment bank where he held senior legal, compliance and regulatory roles.

Berman starts at Latham on 1 August.

His practice focuses on representing financial institutions on regulatory, compliance and governance-related matters and advisingbuy-side and sell-side clients on transactions and remedial work. Berman’s recent work includes advising on the Financial Conduct Authority’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime and the Market Abuse Regulation.

Latham’s London managing partner Jay Sadanandan said Berman was a perfect fit for the firm’s strategic growth in London and the continued expansion of Latham’s global financial services regulatory practice.

Global co-chair of Latham’s financial regulation practice Rob Moulton said: ‘We set our sights on establishing the preeminent global practice with the ability to tackle the most complex regulatory matters of our financial institution clients. David has a tremendous market standing and will be a great addition to our existing strong team.’

Since hiring Ashurst’s global co-head of financial regulation in January this year, Latham has been expanding its global financial regulation practice, most recently hiring Linklaters’ financial regulatory partner Daniel Csefalvay, after a decade working for the Magic Circle firm.

Latham now more than 2,400 lawyers in its offices located in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

This year, after a period of nine years with no partner exits, Quinn lost London-based litigator Paul Friedman to national firm Gunnercooke, alongside Latham hiring Davies in the firm’s litigation practice.

Quinn has also hired in Europe. Stephen Mavroghenis and Miguel Rato joined the firm’s Brussels office from Shearman & Sterling. Mavroghenis was previously the practice group leader of Shearman’s worldwide antitrust practice while Rato was a litigation partner focused on competition law issues.

In recent years, Latham made a string of high-profile City appointments including Slaughter and May finance partner Sanjev Warna-kula-suriya, Allen & Overy banking head Stephen Kensell and most recently Olswang’s commercial litigation partner Ian Felstead.

London office co-head of Quinn Emanuel Richard East told Legal Business: ‘David has unfortunately decided that his practice is best suited to a full service law firm. We are very disappointed to see him go, but wish him very well.’

‘He was the first partner we’d hired in London from a non-contentious background as we viewed his financial services advisory practice as being a good fit with our existing buy side litigation expertise. We thank him for having the courage and the entrepreneurial flair to give it a go.’

Georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Latham and Hogan Lovells act on consortium’s £2.9bn potential offer for Paysafe Group

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Adviser reviews Latham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins is advising Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners in their £2.9bn preliminary proposal takeover bid for UK online payment company Paysafe.

The FTSE 250 company, which is based on the Isle of Mann, was advised by a Hogan Lovells team led by corporate partner Maegen Morrison with support from corporate partners Don McGown and John Connell. 

It announced on Friday it was considering a possible cash offer of 590p per share from a consortium of funds managed by the two private equity heavyweights.

Paysafe offers a prepaid payment method for payments online without a bank account or credit card. It has developed more than 200 payment systems in over 40 currencies. These include digital wallets services which allow account holders to withdraw funds and make payments across 200 countries.

Latham London corporate partners David Walker, Kem Ihenacho and Richard Butterwick are working on the deal for the consortium, which has until 18 August to make a firm offer or withdraw its bid.

Paysafe, which employs more than 2,200 staff in 12 offices in Europe, North America and India, previously rejected a number of indicative offers from the consortium since early May. The company’s shares soared by 8% at the announcement on 21 July.

The payments industry is undergoing a period of consolidation, as people increasingly switch from cash to electronic payment.

In July, US payment group Vantiv purchased British rival Worldpay for £9.1bn and Ingienico acquired Swedish Bambora from Nordic Capital for a total consideration of €1.5 billion.

Hogan Lovells has a long-standing relationship with Paysafe and acted for it in relation to its €1.1bn acquisition of online payment provider Skrill Group from CVC in 2015.

Marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

‘Exciting growth journey’: White & Case advises Polish telecoms company Play on €1bn IPO

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Europe Latham & WatkinsWhite & Case

White & Case has again advised Polish telecoms group Play Communications and its shareholders, Novator and Olympia, this time on Play’s €1bn initial public offering (IPO) on the Warsaw stock exchange.

The IPO, which is the largest in the telecommunications sector in the past two years, values Poland’s second biggest mobile network operator Play at €4bn.

The company is controlled by Greek investor Olympia Development and Iceland’s Novator Partners. It has more than 14m customers.

White & Case’s team was led by private equity partner Ian Bagshaw and corporate finance partner Jill Concannon. London-based partners Jonathan Parry in capital markets, Prabhu Narasimhan in tax, Martin Forbes in private equity, Nicholas Greenacre in employment and Warsaw-based capital markets partner Marcin Studniarek also advised for Play.

Bagshaw said the firm’s lawyers in London and Warsaw had advised on a ‘complex and successful IPO that will allow the company to continue its exciting growth journey’.

Concannon told Legal Business: ‘This all about the high yield to IPO. We got this up and running in ten weeks from high yield to pricing which is extremely unusual. The only reason we were able to do that is we had a high yield prospectus that was basically 90% there which put the company in the starting block so that they could hit the ground running and hit the summer window – something we wouldn’t have been able to do without it.’

White & Case has advised Play on a number of deals since 2014. In 2014, Play returned to White & Case on its €415 million senior PIK toggle notes offering, with a team led by Concannon, capital markets partner Rob Mathews and Bagshaw.

The firm also advised Play earlier this year on term loan facilities and a revolving credit facility of up to zł7bn, led by Bagshaw and Forbes.

Latham & Watkins advised the underwriters, JP Morgan Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS Investment Bank, with a team led by corporate partner Brett Cassidy and capital markets partner Olof Clausson.

Madeleine.farman@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

S&C and Wachtell lead on Amazon’s $13.7bn Whole Foods buyout

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Corporate Latham & WatkinsSullivan & CromwellWachtell, Lipton, Rosen & KatzWeil, Gotshal & Manges

Sullivan & Cromwell and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz lead a host of elite US law firms advising Amazon on its $13.7bn purchase of Whole Foods Market, as the online retailer expands into the bricks and mortar food market.

Sullivan & Cromwell partners Krishna Veeraghavan and Eric Krautheimer are leading on behalf of Amazon while Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz partners Daniel Neff, Trevor Norwitz and Sabastian Niles are acting for Whole Foods.

Weil Gotshal & Manges banking partners Morgan Bale and Heather Viets, capital markets partner Faiza Rahman, M&A partner Raymond Gietz and tax partner William Horton all represented Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. The banking giants provided debt financing for Amazon to pay for the merger.

Latham & Watkins acts for financial adviser Evercore Partners on the deal, with a team consisting of corporate partners Adel Aslani-Far and Mark Gerstein.  US-headquartered company Whole Foods hired Evercore Partners earlier this year to advise the company on a strategic review of its business operations. 

The merger is the first high-profile role that Sullivan & Cromwell has undertaken this year since advising Deutsche Bank on its £500m fine by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in January.

Sullivan & Cromwell white collar partner Samuel Seymour advised Deutsche Bank on its US settlement with the FCA.

For Latham & Watkins, Amazon’s swoop on the upmarket food grocery market is the first major deal since advising offshore drilling contractor Ensco on its $839m acquisition of Atwood Oceanics. The top US-headquarted firm advised Ensco with a team lead by Houston-based energy partners Sean Wheeler and Debbie Yee. Ensco also turned to Slaughter and May corporate partner Hywel Davies for advice.

Amazon was unavailable for comment.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘Reflecting market pressure’: DLA and Latham pick up lead roles on largest toll road merger

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Europe DLA PiperLatham & Watkins

DLA Piper, Latham & Watkins and Legal Business Euro Elite leader Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners all picked up mandates as Italian infrastructure company Atlantia launched a €16.3bn bid to acquire its Spanish rival Abertis.

The offer comprised an all-cash bid that values Abertis at €16.50 per share or a share alternative structure. The merger will be the largest foreign acquisition by an Italian company since utility company Enel bought Spain’s Endesa in 2007 and would create the world’s biggest operator of toll roads.

Legal Business

Gibson Dunn, Latham, Slaughters win roles on Ensco’s $839m buyout of Houston’s Oceanics

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Corporate Gibson, Dunn & CrutcherLatham & WatkinsSlaughter and May

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Latham & Watkins and Slaughter and May have won places advising on London-based offshore drilling contractor Ensco’s $839m acquisition of Houston, US’ Atwood Oceanics.

The deal, which creates a combined company valued at $6.9bn, will create the largest jackup fleet in the world with 37 offshore oil rigs.

Atwood Oceanics’ acquisition gives it current operations and drilling contracts across six continents in markets spanning the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, West Africa, Middle East, North Sea, Mediterranean and Asia Pacific.

Latham & Watkins advised Ensco with a team lead by Houston-based energy partners Sean Wheeler and Debbie Yee. Ensco also turned to Slaughter and May corporate partner Hywel Davies for advice.

Atwood Oceanics was advised by Gibson Dunn with a team including London-based corporate partner Jonny Earle and tax partner Nicholas Aleksander. Houston based Tull Florey lead the team.

In February, Gibson Dunn confirmed it had opened a new Houston office with the firm later taking on six energy partner hires from Baker Botts. Florey, Gerry Spedale, Hillary Holmes, Shalla Prichard, and James Chenoweth joined Gibson Dunn alongside Dallas and Houston based partner Doug Rayburn.

The team joined founding partners Mike Darden, who joined from Latham & Watkins, and Justin Stolte who joined from Apache Corporation. Stolte joined Apache from Latham & Watkins in 2014. The pair previously worked at Baker Botts.

Madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Strategic recruitment: Latham continues litigation push with Olswang hire

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Strategic recruitment CMS UKLatham & Watkins

After taking Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Martin Davies at the start of this year, Latham & Watkins is continuing its litigation push with Olswang partner Ian Felstead.

While Legal Business understands Latham partners have already voted on Felstead’s arrival, it is understood Felstead is still grappling with Olswang’s difficult exit terms, which have been known to restrain partners from joining new firms for up to 18 months.

His departure will come as a blow to Olswang, as it has suffered several exits ahead of the triple merger with CMS Cameron McKenna and Nabarro.

Felstead started his career at Olswang as a trainee in 2000, and specialises in commercial, media and regulatory litigation advising clients on issues like defamation, privacy, contempt, data protection and copyright issues.

Key matters Felstead has been involved with include acting for News Group Newspapers in relation to the hacking scandal and acting for The Guardian in its defence of a breach of confidence action brought by Barclays.

In commercial litigation, Felstead acted for ITV on its High Court litigation with STV in 2011, PartyGaming on its dispute with Empire Online and BPI on its Copyright Tribunal reference regarding online music.

Other Olswang departures of late in London include intellectual property veteran Michael Burdon to Simmons & Simmons last month. Earlier in March it was announced that Dentons would be taking on a team of four patent lawyers alongside partner Justin Hill from Olswang, as well as a trainee and two support staff to launch a UK patents practice.

In January, Olswang Paris head Guillaume Kessler also left the soon-to-be-merged firm in favour of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. The firm’s Paris office has since closed.

Olswang and Latham both refused to comment at press time.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Read more: ‘Sale of the century – Has Camerons picked up a bargain with Olswang and Nabarro?’

 

 

Legal Business

Simpson and Latham in the driver’s seat as Aston Martin launches £530m two-part high-yield bond

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Finance Latham & WatkinsSimpson Thacher & Bartlett

Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and Latham & Watkins have taken lead roles as Aston Martin has launched a new high-yield bond for £530m equivalent, as the car manufacturer moves to expand its range of vehicles in order to boost profitability.

Simpson US securities partner Gil Strauss is understood to have acted for Aston Martin, holding on to the client despite moving several firms in the last six years.

Executives met investors in the City earlier this week, before travelling to New York to continue marketing the mix of sterling high-yield debt and at least $400m in senior secured notes. Pricing is expected on Friday, with a 7% yield indicated.

Strauss moved to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in 2010 after being of counsel at Simpson. He stayed with the Magic Circle firm for three years, before moving to Weil, Gotshal & Manges near the end of 2012. He returned to Simpson as a full equity partner in 2014.

For Latham, Milan-based corporate finance partner Jeff Lawlis led on the transaction, representing the underwriters JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs as global coordinators, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and UniCredit as bookrunners.

Strauss advised for Freshfields when it advised among a raft of firms on Aston Martin’s £304m high-yield bond offering back in June 2011, which saw notes listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the creation of a £30m revolving credit facility.

Nabarro, Freshfields and Dickson Minto had lead roles when Italian private equity firm Investindustrial acquired 37.5% of the luxury British car manufacturer in 2012.

Latham and Simpson both refused to comment.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk