Legal Business

Brazilian hat trick – NRF launches third Latin America office with hire of BP’s Andrew Haynes

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Latin America Norton Rose Fulbright
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Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) is to expand its Latin American footprint as it today (19 February) announces the launch of an office in Rio de Janeiro and the hire of BP’s global corporate assistant general counsel Andrew Haynes as office co-head.

The new office in Brazil, which will be also be run by current head of Colombia, Glenn Faas, will be the LB100 top ten firm’s third in the region after Venezuela (Caracas) and Colombia (Bogotá), and its 55th office worldwide.

The Rio team will practise English, Canadian and US law, and specialise in M&A, joint ventures, securities and project finance transactions, as well as anti-bribery and corruption and investigations, restructuring, and international arbitration and disputes.

The industries it will target include oil & gas, energy, infrastructure, mining and commodities M&A, and aviation and shipping finance.

Haynes joined NRF at the start of February from BP, where as assistant general counsel global corporate he oversaw all M&A legal work for BP globally. Prior to joining BP in 2003 he was deputy general counsel at British Gas (now BG Group), prior to which he was a corporate lawyer with legacy Herbert Smith.

Global chief executive Peter Martyr noted the 2,660-lawyer firm’s clients had been ‘asking us to open in Brazil for some time.’

He added: ‘This represents the successful completion of a major strategic objective for us. We will be able to provide our clients with on-the- ground international legal support for in-bound and domestic activities in Brazil, as well as assist our Brazilian clients with their outward investment activities.’

Head of Latin America Elisabeth Eljuri said: ‘Our Brazil practice will play a key part in our strategy to target mandates across Latin America, including the ‘Southern Cone’ of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay, and to capture intra-Latin American transactional work.

‘We will also seek to represent other Latin American corporates and financial institutions investing abroad, a trend which we believe will accelerate. International capability on the ground in Brazil will help us advise on in-bound work to the region including disputes and regulatory.’

Other firms to enhance their Latin American capabilities of late include Hogan Lovells, which launched a second office in Brazil in January with the hire of former Clifford Chance partner Isabel Costa Carvalho.

The transatlantic firm’s new São Paulo office will operate as a foreign legal consultancy, offering services to local and international companies and banks after the Brazilian Bar Association awarded it a licence to practise in the region in July 2013.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Partner exits: NRF corporate partner Cathy Pitt and head of climate change Hobley move on

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Top 10 LB100 firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has said goodbye to two further senior partner departures as longstanding London-based corporate finance partner Cathy Pitt last month (January) moved to CMS Cameron McKenna to head up its investment management funds group, while the firm’s global head of sustainability and climate change Anthony Hobley left to join the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI) as its first chief executive officer on 1 February.

Having spent 18 years at the 2,647-lawyer firm, Pitt was involved in corporate finance work within the asset management practice, including the establishment of investment funds and corporate advisory work. She also spent seven months on secondment as a legal advisor to financial institution HSBC in 2006, followed by a stint as interim head of group legal at insurer Prudential in 2010.

On Pitt’s departure, a NRF spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that Cathy has retired from the practice. We wish her all the best in her future career.’

Former Baker & McKenzie lawyer Hobley, meanwhile, has retired from the Norton Rose Fulbright partnership but in his new role as chief executive of CTI remains as a special advisor to the chairman and will continue to lead on thought leadership initiatives for the practice globally.

The climate change heavyweight joined Norton Rose as a partner in 2007, having previously served as general counsel at Climate Change Capital.

NRF has seen a number of partners leave its London office in the past three months, including the firm’s global head of aviation Neil Poland, who leaves for Chicago-headquartered Vedder Price’s global transportation finance practice in London this month.

Late last year saw the high-profile departure of Michael Grenfell, who joined the senior leadership team at the newly-created Competition and Markets Authority last November; longstanding antitrust partner Mark Jones who left for Hogan Lovells; and energy partner and former head of nuclear services Fiona Reilly, who left for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to become a director in the nuclear energy team to develop the global energy practice.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

NRF unveils rise in bank loans to £55m but drop in net debt as South African partner appointed as global chair

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Financial results 2012/13 Norton Rose Fulbright
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Norton Rose’s last pre-Fulbright & Jaworski merger limited liability partnership accounts reveal that the top 10 LB100 firm’s bank loans rose from £47m to £55m during 2013, with the amount repayable within one year up from £3.3m to £16m, although its net debt has been cut by over two thirds.

The firm, which this week named South African chairman Sbu Gule as its new global chairman, was in 2013 due to repay £34m of bank loans in between two and five years, up on a figure of £4,830 in 2012.

However, net debt dropped by 71.3% from £26m to just over £7m in 2013, and the firm’s cash at the bank and in hand is up from £15m to £41m.

The firm’s accounts, which include Europe, the Middle East and Asia, cover the period to 30 April 2013, less than two months before its merger with Texas firm Fulbright & Jaworski went live on 3 June. Turnover was up from £355m to £368m, while the profit available for discretionary division between members rose from £81m to £97m.

The firm’s net current assets also rose from £184.2m to £201.9m and its highest paid equity member took home marginally more, up to £1.2m from £1m the previous year.

However, the number of fee-earners dropped by more than 7% from 1,061 to 988 and the number of business services staff decreased from 1,063 to 1,046. Correspondingly staff costs went down by 2.8% from £152m to £146m.

Separately, the firm has also named South Africa chairman Sbu Gule as its new global chairman. He replaces Australia’s Adrian Ahern as head of the firm’s 20-strong global supervisory board.

Gule’s new role will commence on May 1, 2014 while Ahern will continue to serve as chairman of Norton Rose Fulbright Australia and sit on the board. Gule was appointed as chairman of the South Africa business in April 2012 for a four-year term.

Jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Risk and regulatory: NRF launches a 600-lawyer global regulation and investigations practice

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Litigation Norton Rose Fulbright
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The increasingly wide-ranging and cross-departmental regulatory needs of clients sees Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) today (3 February) launch a 600-lawyer international global regulation and investigations practice led by former Fulbright & Jaworski disputes partner and investigations head Lista Cannon and global antitrust chief Martin Coleman.

The 130-partner team will connect global practices including antitrust and competition (led by Coleman); financial services regulation (led by Jonathan Herbst); investigations (including bribery and corruption and international trade and sanctions, led by Cannon); and tax (led by global head Andrius Kontrimas).

As part of the launch, the firm’s lawyers will make efforts to engage with businesses globally throughout 2014 to ‘debate key issues in the identification and management of regulatory risk and related enforcement’, and will conduct events including seminars, client meetings and internal briefings to share knowledge on regulation and investigation issues across key financial centres globally.

Recent research carried out by legal market specialist Acritas, which comprised data from 1,337 interviews with general counsel or their equivalent in organisations globally, found that regulation is the number one business challenge for the world’s global elite businesses.

NRF’s own annual Litigation Trends Survey has also shown that since 2008, companies have been increasingly requiring external counsel for assistance on regulatory investigations and that regulatory disputes have consistently been a major concern.

Plans to design a practice encompassing a wide range of industry skill sets has been in the pipeline since before the firm’s merger went live last year.

Speaking to Legal Business, Cannon said: ‘It’s an opportunity of the combination [of NRF and Fulbright & Jaworski] to take it to another level, to show great depths not just in numbers but geographically. If you look at the industry sectors our clients operate in… these have a regulatory and investigatory rainbow going through them. You can’t be in energy, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, financial institutions or technology without regulation having an impact. The combination of the two has given us that opportunity to push out and develop.’

Coleman added: ‘What we increasingly realised is traditionally you can stereotypically split commercial lawyers into two groups: disputes lawyers going in with their sleeves rolled up to have a fight; and transactional lawyers that sit up late at night and ensure the deal gets done for the client. But the skill set for a regulatory lawyer doesn’t neatly fit into either of those – it has elements of both but always involves something else – it requires strategic and policy understanding of the regulator.’

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Senior hires: KPMG appoints DLA partner as Manchester legal head as A&O and NRF lose partners to HogLove and Vedder Price

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Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryDLA PiperNorton Rose Fulbright
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As KPMG looks to expand its legal services practice the Big Four accountant has hired DLA Piper corporate partner Nick Roome to head its legal services arm in Manchester in what it says is the first of a series of hires planned over the course of this year.

Roome, who has broad corporate, private equity and commercial legal expertise with a focus on the north of England and international markets, qualified with Addleshaws in 2000 before moving to DLA Piper’s Manchester office in 2005. He will start his new role in the late Spring.

KPMG’s legal services practice is a well-established part of KPMG’s wider UK tax practice and has worked with the tax team nationwide for a number of years. The Manchester legal services team currently includes a four-strong tax litigation team, which has been in place for over ten years. In addition, KPMG has a team of advisers on corporate and employment law who help provide multi-disciplinary tax services to clients where required.

Commenting on his appointment, Roome said: ‘I am very excited to be making the move from a law firm to an accounting firm with such a diverse and varied portfolio of clients and projects. KPMG already has a well-established legal services practice and I look forward to helping it grow and develop further in the North.’

Roome is the first of around four or five legal appointments expected in KPMG’s Manchester legal services team.

His hire comes shortly after Legal Business reported in September that KPMG is considering its options under the Legal Services Act (LSA) to convert to an alternative business structure (ABS) in a bid to expand its legal services capability.

EY also said at the time that it had the position ‘under review’ and PwC is understood to be considering its position. Deloitte was the only one of the Big Four accountants to deny any plans to set up an ABS.

Meanwhile, in the City, current global head of aviation at Norton Rose Fulbright, Neil Poland, becomes the latest partner to leave the firm as he joins Chicago-headquartered Vedder Price’s global transportation finance practice in London next month.

Poland, who is rated as ‘top class’ by the Legal 500, acts on behalf of financial institutions on capital markets financings, as well as bank syndicates on the financing of European locomotives and leading passenger rolling stock operating companies (ROSCOs).

Key clients for the Norton Rose aviation team include easyJet, Emirates, Flybe, Malaysian Airline Systems Berhad, Air Tanker Services, Amentum Capital, and Orix Aviation Systems.

‘We are thrilled to have Neil join us,’ said executive committee vice chair and chair of the firm’s global transportation finance team Dean Gerber. ‘Neil has extensive experience in the aviation and rail industry on a global-scale that will deepen Vedder Price’s practice and strengthen our growing London office.’

Prior to joining Norton Rose, Poland worked for the London offices of Magic Circle firms Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance.

Other high-profile departures from Norton Rose in recent months include Michael Grenfell, who joined the senior leadership team at the newly created Competition and Markets Authority last November.

November also saw longstanding antitrust partner Mark Jones leave for Hogan Lovells followed in the same month by energy partner and former head of nuclear services Fiona Reilly, who left for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to become a director in the nuclear energy team to develop the global energy practice.

In other high profile moves, former Allen & Overy (A&O) corporate partner Don McGown is to join Hogan Lovells corporate practice in early February.

McGown, who has been with A&O since 1990, has acted for a number of high profile clients including 21st Century Fox on the US$10 billion spin-off of its publishing and print businesses, and DS Smith on its US$2 billion reverse acquisition of SCA Packaging.

He primarily advises on international M&A and corporate restructuring and has significant sector expertise in telecommunications and media, and financial services.

Commenting on McGown’s arrival Andrew Skipper, global co-head of Hogan Lovells’ corporate practice, said: ‘Continuing to strengthen our excellent London corporate practice is important for us and Don’s arrival will bring additional high quality board level experience and international perspective to our London team.

‘Don is a highly effective and skilled practitioner with the right skillset, market standing and collegiate approach. He is the perfect fit for our corporate practice with its global spread, in-depth industry knowledge and expertise in highly regulated sectors.’

francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Deal watch – Norton Rose Fulbright and Freshfields lead on BMO’s $1.2bn takeover of F&C

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Corporate Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerNorton Rose Fulbright
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Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) is advising one of its oldest clients, Edinburgh-based UK and European asset manager F&C Asset Management on its $1.2bn acquisition by Bank of Montreal (BMO Financial Group) led by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

The NRF team is being led by London corporate partners Chris Randall and Paul Whitelock, with BMO’s former senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer John Jason, who joined the top 10 LB100 firm’s Toronto office as of counsel earlier this month, also involved on the deal.

The Freshfields team for BMO, Canada’s fourth largest lender, is headed by City co-head of the international asset management group, Matthew Cosans. The Magic Circle firm’s team also includes corporate partner George Swan, regulatory partner Mark Kalderon and employment partner Nick Squire. According to Bloomberg, this is the second-largest takeover in the bank’s 196-year history.

F&C is a longstanding client of Norton Rose, which previously advised on its 2010 acquisition of the Thames River Capital group, a specialist asset management business in a deal worth £53.6m. The firm also advised F&C when the High Court ordered the asset manager to pay indemnity costs stemming from a disagreement with hedge fund managers and former partners of F&C, and had the ruling quashed in the Court of Appeal in 2012.

The 2647-lawyer firm secured a base in Canada following its merger with Canadian firm Ogilvy Renault in 2011 and subsequently consolidated its position in Canada with the acquisition of Calgary-based Macleod Dixon.

Chris Randall told Legal Business: ‘The firm has been working with F&C since 1868, when it was the first-ever investment trust. It is one of the firm’s oldest clients and it was a pleasure to work with them on this transaction.’

BMO said in a statement that it expects the deal to complete by May 1, although it is likely to be subject to regulatory approval.

david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

(with additional reporting by sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk)

Legal Business

Norton Rose takes pole position as McLaren drops Bakers as global legal adviser

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Corporate Norton Rose Fulbright
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Baker & McKenzie has lost its role as global legal adviser to British automotive group McLaren, which has opted for fellow Global 100 firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF).

NRF will work closely with McLaren’s in-house legal team, providing services on corporate and M&A work, as well as contractual, IP, real estate and employment law. The firm has also formed a corporate partnership with the McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 team, although the firm refused to comment on how much this tie-up would cost the firm.

Baker & McKenzie has advised McLaren since the 1980s, with annual legal fees said to be worth around £1m.

NRF’s appointment as advisor to McLaren Group covers McLaren Racing and McLaren Applied Technologies and excludes McLaren Automotive.

NRF’s global chief executive Peter Martyr described it as an ‘exciting partnership’ and by becoming a ‘corporate partner and providing worldwide legal services to McLaren Group, we aim to reinforce the importance that we place on our people’s commitment to teamwork and excellence. We have already committed to developing a joint CSR project.’

McLaren Group’s group legal director Timothy Murnane said: ‘We see Norton Rose Fulbright as one of the leading global legal practices, combining a lengthy history with an appetite for change and a pursuit of excellence which resonates with our own corporate ideals. Our unique partnership will bring together two highly respected global businesses with the potential to achieve great things together.’

Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Cyber warfare – Norton Rose Fulbright hires global chief information security officer

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Cyber security Norton Rose Fulbright
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Top ten LB100 firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has moved to further protect client information with the hire the former head of cyber security for National Air Traffic Services (NATS) Paul Swarbrick as its global chief information security officer (CISO) in the London office.

Announced today (21 January), Swarbrick will join the senior management team, and work closely with IT and the business internationally to ‘strengthen proactively, and develop, a consistent approach to information assurance and cyber security worldwide,’ a firm statement said.

Having spent 25 years providing information securities services to major organisations, Swarbrick spent 18 months at NATS, which is responsible for the civil air navigation services of 200,000 square miles of UK and North Atlantic civilian airspace and nearly 2,500,000 flights a year.

Prior to this role, Swarbrick also served as a senior security consultant to Capgemini Consulting, supporting HM Revenue & Customs in improving its security arrangements both at corporate and system level.

The firm’s current global chief information officer Sheila Doyle said Swarbrick’s ‘depth of experience will continue to strengthen the information security function of the practice globally, particularly as information and cyber security is an increasingly important issue for clients around the world.

‘Companies need CISOs who, like Paul, are commercially astute and can act as the conduit between various organisational and operational structures and hierarchies to provide an enterprise–wide solution to the security challenge.’

Global chief executive Peter Martyr added: ‘Information security is a growing issue for our clients and it is an issue we take seriously at an executive level.’ To read more on the rise of the CIO, see ‘Systems addicts – the CIO power list.’

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

New year hiring spree continues as Weil Gotshal and Norton Rose recruit from rivals

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Strategic recruitment Norton Rose FulbrightWeil, Gotshal & Manges
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Top-20 Global 100 firms Norton Rose Fulbright and Weil, Gotshal & Manges have made significant and experienced additions to their London offices today (15 January), from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hogan Lovells respectively.

Weil Gotshal has taken on Hogan Lovells partner Chris McLaughlin to join its banking and finance practice in London.

McLaughlin has extensive experience acting for banks and borrowers on the financing of cross-border private equity buyouts as well as European real estate acquisitions and restructurings.

Weil Gotshal has made great strides in its London banking practice in recent times, taking high-yield specialist Gil Strauss from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer just over a year ago as well as leveraged finance partner Stephen Lucas from Linklaters in 2011.

However, McLaughlin’s arrival and the growing strength of its banking practice contrasts with the London office’s fortunes in its signature area of private equity. Mark Soundy and Simon Burrows left to join Shearman & Sterling in 2013, while funds partner Nick Benson left for Latham & Watkins this month.

‘We are delighted that Chris is joining Weil to further enhance the growing European finance practice. In a short space of time, Stephen Lucas and the London team, working with our teams in Paris, the rest of Europe and the US, have established a leading reputation for sophisticated leveraged finance work,’ said Barry Wolf, the firm’s executive partner.

Meanwhile Norton Rose Fulbright has hired counsel Geoff Peters from Freshfields to be a partner in its energy M&A practice in London. He has more than 15 years’ experience of the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors and has worked with multinational oil and gas majors as well as national oil companies. He has completed M&A transactions around the world including in Russia, Canada, Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia.

‘We are delighted that Geoff will be joining us. Geoff’s impressive international experience complements our global presence. He will add further depth to our busy corporate oil and gas practice, and work with colleagues not only in the UK, but around the world,’ said Martin Scott, global head of corporate, M&A and securities.

david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Redundancy watch: Norton Rose Fulbright reveals 30 job cuts in Australia

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Norton Rose Fulbright has made 30 staff redundant throughout its Australian offices, including 12 fee-earners and 18 support staff. The firm stated this was ‘not a change that is happening in any other region than Australia – it is a local response to a local market.’

A spokesperson for the firm added: ‘This was a difficult decision and we are doing all that we can to support those affected. Like other professional services firms in Australia, we have responded to changes in the local market. We will continue to concentrate on our primary areas of growth: financial institutions; energy; infrastructure, mining and commodities; transport; technology and innovation; and life sciences and healthcare.’

‘Those affected have been individually contacted. We are of course providing each person with as much support as we can during this process.’

All Australian staff have since been informed, as the changes took effect from last Thursday (14 November).

It was also confirmed today (21 November) that the firm’s London-based head of nuclear services Fiona Reilly had departed from the firm after 14 years to take up a role as director at auditing giant PwC. Her move coincides with that of longstanding antitrust partners Mark Jones and Michael Grenfell who also confirmed they were leaving for Hogan Lovells and the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) respectively in the last week.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk