Legal Business

Linklaters throws down gauntlet as Latham funds co-head makes rare City switch

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Strategic recruitment Linklaters

In an unusual City move from a US firm to the Magic Circle, Latham & Watkins co-head of investment funds Tom Alabaster is to join Linklaters three years after joining Latham from Carlyle.

The hire comes a few months after Linklaters launched a refreshed strategy to focus on financial sponsors and fund formation and Alabaster, who starts next month, is a significant coup for a firm less known for fund formation work compared to rivals Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Clifford Chance.

Previously senior counsel at Carlyle Group’s London and New York offices, Latham hired Alabaster in April 2014 to boost its links with the private equity giant. His clients also include Ares Management, Evercore Partners and General Electric.

Speaking to Legal Business, Linklaters head of investment management Matthew Keogh described fund formation as one of the pillars of the firm’s new strategy, announced in the Spring.

He said that the firm had broadened its focus on transatlantic operations: ‘Tom is coming in because he has a first-class pedigree in private equity work but also a broad range of skills working in both the US and UK. The fact that the firm has supported his hire is an indication of our ambitions.’

The firm’s full-service offering was one of the factors attracting Alabaster, according to Keogh. In particular he noted Linklaters’ presence in Luxembourg and the increasing amount of work coming out of the country as one of the factors that would give the new hire more means to thrive compared to Latham.

Linklaters is considered to have the least-effective US practice among the City’s top four, a particular weak spot at a time when so many US funds are investing in Europe.

However, Keogh pointed to the ‘enormous amount of work’ the firm was doing for clients such as KKR and added that in terms of investment management Linklaters has ‘equal quality in our US office than any of the US firms’.

Latham did not comment.

Marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

As rivals retrench Linklaters retains expansive German form as A&O veteran becomes third lateral of 2017

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Germany Linklaters

Linklaters is following up on its recent investment in Germany by strengthening its finance practice with a lateral from Magic Circle rival Allen & Overy (A&O).

Neil George Weiand will join Linklaters’ Frankfurt arm, leaving A&O after 19 years, including 17 of them as a partner. Weiand, who has previously served as German senior partner for A&O, has worked on a series of major deals, including last year acting for Bayer on its $62bn bid to acquire agricultural group Monsanto. Weiand, whose practice covers restructuring, leveraged finance and general loans, worked at Deutsche Bank for seven years before joining A&O.

It is Linklaters’ third senior appointment in Frankfurt this year, after recruiting Clifford Chance’s Germany private equity head Christopher Kellett and DLA Piper’s international group head of real estate, Carsten Loll.

Linklaters counts more than 250 lawyers in the country and is one of the few international players to have a branch in Berlin, along with Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf.

Despite having historically struggled to establish a practice that could challenge top-tier operators like Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hengeler Mueller, Linklaters is regarded to have made inroads in Europe’s largest economy in recent years. Linklaters advised German oil and gas company Linde as it merged with US competitor Praxair in the second largest global M&A transaction this year so far at $45.5bn, and acted on the split-up of E.On last year.

Linklaters German senior partner Andreas Steck said the appointment of Weiand would ‘strengthen the link between finance and corporate’.

Thomas Ubber, senior partner at A&O Germany, noted that the firm retained 64 finance lawyer nationally.

Linklaters’ expansive form comes as a number of London rivals, including CC and Freshfields, have moved to pare back their operations in Germany, reflecting the challenge for top London firms to sustain high margins in the local market.

marco.cillario@legalease.co.uk

For an analysis of top London law firms’ practices in continental Europe see this year’s Global 100 analysis, ‘The European Question’ (£).

Legal Business

Looking east: Linklaters cements Saudi partnership as Hogan Lovells shuts Mongolia base

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Middle East and Africa Hogan LovellsLinklaters

Two Global 100 firms have made opposing international moves this week, with Linklaters signing a partnership with a local firm in Saudi Arabia while Hogan Lovells announced the closure of its Mongolia base.

Linklaters announced today (11 October) it has entered a formal agreement with 20-lawyer Zamakhchary & Co (Z & Co), meaning two lawyers from the Magic Circle firm will be based in the kingdom.

The announcement comes five years after the two firms started exchanging referrals and working together on cross-border transactions, capital markets, finance and project finance. Four-partner Z & Co has offices in Riyadh and Jeddah.

Linklaters senior associate Omar El Sayed, described by Middle East managing partner Scott Campbell as ‘one of our young superstars’, will relocate from Dubai to work from Z & Co’s offices and lead Linklater’s Saudi operation. A lateral hire, still to be announced, will join El Sayed later this year.

Linklaters currently has 40 lawyers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, managing the firm’s operations in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Campbell told Legal Business today’s agreement means the Magic Circle firm is ‘formally committing to having people on the ground in the Kingdom in the long term’ with the aim to ‘build a bigger business’.

He connected the expansion of the firm’s operation in the region to the Vision 2030 programme, through which the Kingdom is looking to diversify Saudi economy away from oil through economic and social initiatives and reforms, in the hope of generating $100bn in non-oil revenue by 2020 and develop six million jobs in non-oil sectors by 2030.

‘The modernisation and transformation of an economy brings a lot of advice opportunities in the transactional and corporate finance space,’ added Campbell.

A number of global firms have expanded their presence in the Kingdom since the programme was launched last year.

Last month CMS established a partnership with Riyadh practice Feras Al Shawaf . Clifford Chance announced in August last year that it was entering an association with Abuhimed Alsheikh Alhagbani Law Firm (AS&H), reworking its operation in the region after contention with local authorities over the legality of its Saudi office.

Herbert Smith Freehills  and DLA Piper also have a presence in the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Hogan Lovells announced it will close its Mongolia office at the end of November after seven years, with local managing partner Chris Melville set to establish a new independent firm in Ulaanbaatar that will co-operate with Hogan Lovells.

Global chief executive Steve Immelt said the decision followed ‘a review of the market and our investment priorities’, adding that Melville had been ‘closely involved in the decision’. The firm has not said how many of the other 14 people employed in Ulaanbaatar will move to the new office.

The announcement means DLA Piper and Dentons are among the very few international firms with a presence in Mongolia.

marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

Magic Circle prove mettle as Tata and ThyssenKrupp agree €15bn steel JV

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Corporate LinklatersSlaughter and May

Following last month’s separation of Tata Steel’s business from the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS), Linklaters and Slaughter and May have been drafted in to advise on its much-anticipated €15bn joint venture with Germany’s ThyssenKrupp.

The 50:50 project received the green light as the firms signed a memorandum of understanding today (20 September) to launch an Amsterdam-headquartered joint venture consisting of a 48,000-strong workforce spread across 34 locations. A final agreement is expected to be signed in 2018.  

Slaughters is acting for longstanding client Tata Steel on the deal, alongside best friend firms Hengeler Mueller and De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.

Slaughters’ team is led by M&A partners Robin Ogle and Padraig Cronin, alongside finance partner Andrew McClean. German-based Hengeler Mueller’s team comprises M&A partners Christof Jackle and Karsten Schmidt-Hern while M&A partners Mark Rebergen and Anja Mutsaers make up the team from Netherlands firm De Brauw.

Linklaters is advising ThyssenKrupp, with a team headed by Düsseldorf M&A partners Kristina Klaassen-Kaiser and Ralph Wollburg.

Ogle told Legal Business the deal was particularly interesting given its ‘cross-border nature’ and highlighted the successful co-operation between Slaughters and its best friend firms on the continent.

Despite the two steel manufacturers being in negotiations since last year, Tata’s separation from the BSPS was seen as a major obstacle to any combination. However, the separation completed in August through a regulated apportionment agreement and by paying £550m to BSPS.

Slaughter and May was on hand to advise on the restructuring through pensions and employment partner Charles Cameron. Travers Smith represented the BSPS trustee, with a team led by pensions partners Paul Stannard, Dan Naylor and Susie Daykin, while Hogan Lovells represented the Pension Protection Fund.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

A first for everything: Ex-Linklaters partner breaks new ground with High Court appointment

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Litigation Linklaters

As the profession’s liberal wing casts a sceptical eye over the Bar’s lack of diversity, former Linklaters capital markets partner Clare Moulder has made history by becoming the first female solicitor to be appointed to the High Court without practising as a barrister.

Moulder, who joined Linklaters in 1982 and made partner in 1991, will take her post on 2 October following the appointment of Sir Julian Martin Flaux to the Court of Appeal.

At Linklaters, Moulder acted as a relationship partner for some of the City giant’s key banking clients and also possessed a broad banking and capital markets practice. In 2010 she was appointed as a recorder and two years later was authorised to sit as a deputy High Court Judge. Moulder was appointed as a Specialist Circuit judge in 2015.

Linklaters senior partner Charlie Jacobs described Moulder’s selection as ‘an historic day for the UK legal profession’ and ‘proof that talented solicitors can make the transition to the highest ranks of the judiciary’.

Law Society president Joe Egan added: ‘Being appointed to the High Court bench is a significant achievement for any practitioner. That Clare Moulder comes from two groups who remain under-represented in the higher levels of the judiciary – women and solicitors – makes her appointment all the more significant.’

Women currently make up 21 of the 96 High Court judges, under a quarter (22%) of the group. Statistics published by the Courts and Tribunal Judiciary in July indicated that 28% of court judges were female and that a third were from non-barrister backgrounds.

However, there have been positive signs for diversity campaigners in recent months, with the Supreme Court appointing its first female head as Lady Hale replaced the outgoing Lord Neuberger.

Hale, who is often considered the court’s most progressive judge, was also the first woman appointed to the Law Commission in 1984 and became the first woman at the UK’s top court when she joined the House of Lords five years before its rebirth as the Supreme Court.

Julian Knowles, QC of Matrix Chambers, was also appointed to the High Court this month. Knowles, who was called to the Bar in 1994 and made Queen’s Counsel (QC) in 2011, specialises in criminal law, human rights law, public law, and media law.

Other high profile appointees include 5RB’s joint head of chambers Matthew Nicklin QC and David Williams QC of 4 Paper Buildings.

In January’s round of QC appointments, 73% of successful applicants were male. However, women tended to be more successful relative to applications, with 55% of female applicants succeeding in comparison to only 41% of males.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Deal Watch: Third time lucky for Links and Ashurst on software bid as HSF puts PR shop into the headlines

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Corporate AshurstHerbert Smith FreehillsLinklaters

Given the steady hum of deal activity over the summer, the crucial September period has yet to take off with a flurry of big ticket M&A, but Linklaters, Ashurst and DLA Piper are among firms handling prominent work this week.

The largest deal to hit Europe’s market this week has seen Linklaters and Ashurst advising on the combination between British company Aveva and France’s Schneider Software to create a £3bn tech group. Linklaters’ corporate partner Aisling Zarraga and capital markets partner Richard Good are heading the team for Schneider, a long-time client of the firm with the City giant advising parent group Schneider Electric in 2013 on its £3.3bn takeover of UK engineering group Invensys. Ashurst, meanwhile, fielded a contingent under corporate partners Karen Davies and James Fletcher for the Cambridge-based Aveva. The deal is expected to complete by the end of the year.

Schneider will take a 60% stake in Aveva, injecting £550m in cash into the British company, which will go to shareholders, and £100m on its balance sheet. The remaining 40% of the listed company will stay in the hands of public shareholders.

This is the third combination attempt between the two companies. Linklaters and Ashurst previously worked on a possible deal in the summer of 2015, but talks were called off in December. Negotiations held the following year also led to nothing. The parties involved cited a complex combination, which required extracting Schneider Software from parent group Schneider Electric to combine the business with Aveva.

Linklaters’ Good told Legal Business: ‘We are very proud to be part of this deal, which will create a global leader in the industrial technology sector.’

Ashurst’s Davies added: ‘It is fantastic to achieve after three attempts. It is a great deal for the industry and a great deal for Ashurst. It represents the culmination of a great deal of hard work and collaboration between the Aveva and Ashurst teams over a number of years.’

Elsewhere, DLA Piper is working with supermarket chain Nisa on its possible sale to the Co-op for a reported £140m. Co-op has not instructed any external legal adviser yet, but has confirmed it has entered exclusive talks with the convenience store chain and is carrying out the due diligence for the acquisition.

Aside from transactional work, Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has acted on the most high profile contentious mandate to hit the headlines this week, after writing a critical report on the activity of leading City PR shop Bell Pottinger. Published a day after Bell Pottinger chief executive James Henderson resigned, the report was critical of the PR firm’s handling of controversial campaign in South Africa on behalf of Oakbay, a holding company owned by the Gupta family. The report, which was published on Monday (4 September), found the campaign had created potentially racially divisive material targeted towards ‘wealthy white South African individuals or corporates’. Henderson himself had commissioned HSF to produce the report over the summer.

marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

‘Knowhow and track record’: Magic Circle dominates new panel as seven firms dropped in government legal services revamp

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Adviser reviews Clifford ChanceFreshfields Bruckhaus DeringerLinklatersSlaughter and May

Magic Circle firms constitute four of the nine advisers appointed to the government’s new finance and complex legal services panel with seven law firms left out after a reboot of its legal services framework continues.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance are part of the new panel advising on matters including finance, refinancing, capital markets, corporate transactions, projects and regulation.

Dentons, Ashurst, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Hogan Lovells and Simmons & Simmons will also sit on the Crown Commercial Services’ advisory group, which will replace the finance and regulation panel when this expires in January next year.

Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy, Burges Salmon, Mills & Reeve, Nabarro (now CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang), Pinsent Masons and Squire Sanders (now Squire Patton Boggs) were on the previous panel but have not been named this time around.

The contract runs for two years from 21 August, with an option to extend for up to 24 further months.

Dentons will offer an integrated service in Scotland through its recently announced merger with Maclay Murray & Spens, while sub-contractor Brodies will support Simmons on Scottish law. Another sub-contractor, Bates Wells Braithwaite, will give Simmons additional public and administrative law support.

Christopher McGee-Osborne, who led Dentons’ panel bid, said the appointment of the firm, which has advised the government for more than 30 years, demonstrated it has ‘the public sector knowhow and track record to deliver the best advice and service to central government’.

Helen Hancock, a finance partner at Simmons & Simmons said: ‘As a firm we have had a strong focus on government and public sector work for many years. We were on the previous panel, and this new panel arrangement is an opportunity for us to build on our track record in what we see as a focus for us going forward.’

Other recently announced panels replacing parts of the government’s legal services framework include rosters for general legal services and rail legal services.

In March 2016, the government announced an initiative to cut down the number of go-to-firms it uses for external advice by almost 40%. The reduction formed part of a bid to improve legal services delivery across the public sector.

marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

Freshfields freezes associate pay bands after 2016 largesse but battle for top juniors to intensify

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Salaries Clifford ChanceFreshfields Bruckhaus DeringerLinklaters

Amid a simmering market for junior City lawyers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has opted to hold the line on associate salaries following a round of bumper increases in 2016.

Newly-qualified (NQ) solicitors at the Magic Circle firm currently earn £85,000. This rate was established last year when the City giant substantially overhauled its comp structure to hike base salaries from £67,500 to £85,000, a 26% rise. The increase included the rolling in of bonuses, though overall compensation was also increased.

Freshfields London managing partner Julian Long said the firm has ‘continued to review our competitive position, which, in terms of total compensation, remains strong in the market’. He added Freshfields would ‘continue to review and update, taking account of the market, to make sure our approach properly rewards our people for the work they do and the high standards they consistently achieve.’

The decision comes amid continuing upward salary pressure for junior associates, thanks largely to six-figure packages on offer at US-based rivals. In June it emerged that Linklaters had nudged up its base rate for junior lawyers by £1,000, handing NQ solicitors £82,000, which gives its new solicitors the ability to earn a total package of £90,000 including bonuses. Slaughters made the decision in June to hold its associate salaries after it boosted associate base salaries by 10% as of 1 January 2017. NQ pay increased 9% to £78,000, while 1PQE salaries rose 10% to £87,000.

Clifford Chance (CC) declined to disclose its pay bands for junior lawyers. It is understood that the firm has brought its junior lawyers’ base rate pay up to match the UK’s 2.7% jump in inflation, which for a newly-qualified base rate of £85,000 would suggest increases of over £2,000 for juniors.

Such moves reflect an increasing opacity in the compensation of junior associates in recent years as leading London firms have moved away from strictly-banded – and transparent – pay models based on post-qualification experience in favour of more merit-driven systems.

Whether such shifts will be enough to persuade the most ambitious young lawyers to resist the advance of more generous US rivals remains very much a moot point.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Trainee retention: Linklaters, Gowling, Macfarlanes and Ince keep rates high for the autumn

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Trainee retention Ince & CoLinklaters

Linklaters is the latest Magic Circle firm to post its trainee retention numbers, retaining 84% of its 56-strong cohort.

This proportion was slightly down on its 91% autumn retention rate last year. 53 offers were made to this year’s group, with 47 accepting positions. Last week Allen & Overy posted a retention rate of 85% while Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer retained 66% of its cohort.

In addition, Gowling WLG, Macfarlanes, Ince & Co, Taylor Wessing and Stewarts Law have also revealed their trainee retention rates this week.

From a group of 25 trainees, Gowling WLG has retained 21 individuals, giving it retention rate of 84%. Twelve people have taken up newly qualified positions in the City and nine will join the firm’s Birmingham office. It’s an improvement on last autumn’s 78% trainee retention rate when the firm kept 18 of its 23 trainees.

Macfarlanes has retained 100% of its 25 trainees, with 23 individuals agreeing to permanent positions while two people accepted fixed term contracts. This year’s figures are an improvement on last autumn’s 90% retention figure. The firm’s head of graduate recruitment Seán Lavin said the firm tries ‘very hard to ensure that we can offer a role to each trainee on qualification in order to keep that talent within the firm’, taking on ‘the highest quality … with a view to offering them long-term careers with the firm’.

Ince & Co has mirrored its results from last year, posting a 90% retention rate from its group of 10. Two of its NQs will join take up places outside of the firm’s London headquarters with one joining its Monaco office and another in Dubai. Last autumn the firm retained 89% of its group of nine.

Taylor Wessing posted a lower trainee retention rate, keeping 62%. It’s a tumble on last year’s figures when the firm retained 77% of its group of 22. Sixteen NQs will remain at the firm with patents; IT, telecoms and competition; disputes and investigations; private client; private equity; private capital and corporate finance; and real estate, planning and environment practices each gaining two new associates apiece, while the construction and engineering and tax and incentives practices will both be receiving one NQs.

And despite another strong year financially, Stewarts Law has retained just one of its four trainees qualifying this autumn.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Sainsburys appoints eleven firms including Linklaters, Addleshaws, CMS and Dentons to new roster

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Adviser reviews Addleshaw GoddardCMS UKLinklaters

UK supermarket and retailer Sainsbury’s Group has appointed eleven firms to its new legal panel, including Linklaters, Addleshaw Goddard, Dentonsand CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Oslwang.

The other firms on the roster are TLT, Cleaver Fulton Rankin, Lewis Silkin, Winckworth Sherwood, BLM, Mason Hayes Curran and Shepherd & Wedderburn.

The panel, which was last reviewed in 2014, previously included Bond Dickinson, Croner, King & Wood Mallesons, DWF and Gowling WLG.

The legal panel, known internally as the ‘Sainsbury’s Legal Community’, will cover jurisdictions in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland – which is a new jurisdiction following the Group’s acquisition of Argos. The panel is typically reviewed every three years.

In a press statement, Nick Grant, head of group legal services for Sainsburys said: ‘As we continue to integrate Argos with Sainsbury’s we’ve selected a panel that provides the right combination of experience and fresh thinking.’

He said the firms were chosen to ensure that the Sainsbury’s Group obtained the legal support for the range of markets and jurisdictions in which it now operated.

Grant created the Sainsbury’s Legal Community in 2011, which involves multiple firms collaborating to provide advice. The change allowed the in-house team to present its objectives more openly and let firms that are stronger in certain areas collaborate to produce better advice.

Recent completed panels include HSBC, which appointed around ten firms to its UK legal banking panel. Addleshaw Goddard, Eversheds Sutherland and Simmons & Simmons were among those which made the cut.

CMS, Dentons and Pinsent Masons are also among the roster which was reduced in size.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk