Legal Business

Linklaters’ losses mount as Paul Weiss picks up City public M&A partner

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Strategic recruitment Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Paul Weiss has added yet another string to its bow, again to the detriment of Linklaters, with the hire of public M&A partner Dan Schuster-Woldan in London.

The move, the latest in Paul Weiss’ seemingly relentless onslaught on elite rivals, marks its first London partner hire of 2024.

Schuster-Woldan – a Linklaters lifer – trained at Linklaters, qualifying in 2002 and was made up to partner in 2010. He is recognised in The Legal 500 for his insurance and M&A work and was most recently co-head of the Magic Circle firm’s global insurance sector group.

Schuster-Woldan brings with him experience in public and private M&A joint ventures, equity capital markets transactions – including substantive IPOs – as well as corporate restructurings. His cross-border work has included deals in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

His recent mandates include advising on the proposed sale of the Telegraph newspaper and the Spectator magazine in the UK and advising on long-term savings and retirement business Phoenix Group on its £248m acquisition of SLF of Canada UK (Sun Life UK), a UK closed book life insurance company, from Sun Life Financial Inc., in 2023.

Schuster-Woldan will join Nicole Kar, the former head of Linklaters’ antitrust and foreign investment practice, who joined Paul Weiss in December. Around the same time, it hired private equity partner Christopher Sullivan and acquisition finance partner Taner Hassan from Clifford Chance.

Back in September, Paul Weiss also hired M&A partner Will Aitken-Davies from Linklaters and focused on its tax practice by hiring former Kirkland partners Timothy Lowe and Cian O’Connor, who were also previously at Linklaters. As losses continue to mount for the Magic Circle, all eyes will be on who Paul Weiss will single out next.

Paul Weiss and Linklaters have been approached for comment.

elisha.juttla@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Revolving doors: Departures from Clifford Chance and Linklaters as US firms continue to snap up talent in London

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Strategic recruitment Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Paul Weiss continued to cut a swathe through the London market this week with a double partner hire from Clifford Chance. The US firm brought over Legal 500 private equity leading individual Christopher Sullivan, who led the UK private equity practice at CC, and acquisition finance partner Taner Hassan, who joins as head of European leveraged finance.

The hires are the latest in a flurry of London recruitment for Paul Weiss, which is targeting some of the top corporate and finance practices in London to build out its nascent English law offering following earlier recruits from Kirkland & Ellis and Linklaters.

Meanwhile, Reed Smith has hired Linklaters capital markets partner Mark Drury into its financial industry group. Drury, a specialist in structured finance with experience advising on matters relating to fintech and crypto, told Legal Business that he has joined to help grow the firm’s collateralised loan obligations offering (CLO) in Europe.

Despite a tough year for global markets, Drury is optimistic about future prospects: ‘The CLO market has seen a decline in new issuances this year as a result of macroeconomic headwinds, but there is a sense in the market that activity will pick up next year,’ he explains. ‘There is a lot of dry powder in the system and the global economy is showing positive signs due to interest rates beginning to stabilise.’

Drury spent nearly 20 years at Linklaters after training there in 2004, making partner in 2016. His departure marks another in a recent run of losses for the magic circle firm, which also saw antitrust foreign investment head Nicole Kar leave for Paul Weiss earlier this month and tax partner James Morgan leave for Kirkland & Ellis in November.

Elsewhere, funds partner Katie McMenamin has left Travers Smith for Simpson Thacher. McMenamin made partner at Travers in 2020, and her exit follows that of fellow funds partners Ed Ford and Sacha Gofton-Salmond, who also moved to Simpson Thacher in February. She has experience advising both borrowers and lenders on a variety of strategies and products including subscription and hybrid financing and secondary transactions.

In a notable hire for its white-collar practice, White & Case has recruited Macfarlanes corporate crime and investigations practice head Neill Blundell. A Legal 500 Hall of Famer, Blundell’s practice sees him advise both individuals and large corporates on a range of white-collar matters spanning from compliance to investigations.

The hire comes three years after the practice’s high-profile former head Jonathan Pickworth left for Paul Hastings with fellow white collar partner Joanna Dimmock. Blundell will now work alongside Jonah Anderson and Anneka Randhawa, who have co-led the team since Pickworth’s departure.

Bird & Bird has expanded its IP practice with the hire of life sciences and healthcare partner Nicole Jadeja. Jadeja, who was co-head of life sciences at Fieldfisher before leaving for Pinsent Masons in 2019, has experience in strategic IP advice and patent litigation, including for biotech companies working in gene and cell therapy.

Elsewhere, Morgan Lewis continued to grow in Germany, bringing in Bird & Bird private equity duo Hans ‘Peter’ Leube and Marianne Nawroth into its Frankfurt office. Leube previously headed Bird & Bird’s international PE group and German corporate practice, and both he and Nawroth focus on transactions in the telecoms and tech sectors.

Morgan Lewis opened in Munich in March with the hire of 20 lawyers from Shearman & Sterling, and the firm sets its two most recent hires in the context of an increasing focus on the German market, with firm chair Jami McKeon saying in a statement: ‘The opening of our Munich office earlier this year was an exciting step in our commitment to Germany, and with this move we continue our momentum to serve our clients in this significant and important legal and business market in Europe.’

Finally, King & Spalding expanded its Abu Dhabi corporate, finance and investments (CFI) practice group with its hire of Simon Fraser, who is recognised in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for oil, gas and natural resources in the UAE, and Matt Hartsuyker. Both lawyers join from Ashurst, where Hartsuyker was a senior associate and Fraser headed the firm’s Middle East corporate practice.

alexander.ryan@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

The onslaught continues: Paul Weiss raids Kirkland again to hire City IP partner

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Strategic recruitment Kirkland & EllisPaul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Just when the market thought Paul Weiss had eased up on its hiring spree in the run-up to Christmas, the firm has hired John Patten, a partner in the London technology and intellectual property (IP) transactions practice of Kirkland & Ellis.

The move sees the Wall Street giant continue to pursue with gusto the build-out of the English law practice that has gathered momentum in short order, much to the chagrin of the management of Kirkland and Linklaters, among others.

For his part, Patten, who is joining Paul Weiss as a full equity partner, has been a partner at Kirkland since October 2021, before which he was a trainee, and subsequently an associate at Linklaters.

His practice focuses on advising clients on commercial and corporate transactions in which technology and IP play a role, as well as advising on data protection compliance with European data privacy laws.

The hire brings Paul Weiss another step closer to establishing a top-flight corporate practice to complement the formidable finance practice brought over from Kirkland in August by rainmaker Neel Sachdev.

Sachdev, along with private equity star Roger Johnson who defected from Kirkland around the same time, are co-leading Paul Weiss’ London office. The M&A offering also includes former Linklaters partner Will Aitken-Davies and former Kirkland partner Andreas Philipson.

If the strategy for Paul Weiss in London is to eventually be able to service all areas of private equity, the plan certainly seems to be coming together.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Go big or go home: Market reacts to Paul Weiss’ daring London play

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Strategic recruitment Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Grabbing headlines in recent weeks, Paul Weiss has pursued an English law offering at breakneck speed, hiring some of the City’s biggest hitters. Here LB canvasses the reactions of industry peers to the Wall Street giant’s bold play.

‘The firm was keen to do something for a while and spoke to a lot of people in the market. But it needed a big name to lead it,’ commented one source with knowledge of the matter. And it is fair to say that Paul Weiss’ hire of debt superstar Neel Sachdev from Kirkland & Ellis has arguably been the most groundbreaking move the City has seen since buyout star David Higgins left Freshfields for Kirkland in 2017.

Legal Business

Paul Weiss’ hire of Kirkland rock star is the shake-up we didn’t know we needed

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Pritchard Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

‘Paul Weiss hasn’t got enough partners in London for doubles ping pong!’ scoffed a senior source at the beginning of August when it emerged that the Wall Street powerhouse had lost its City managing partner, Alvaro Membrillera, to Kirkland & Ellis.

What a difference a few short weeks make. While the political skirmishes inside Kirkland that prompted the exit of private equity star Roger Johnson can only be guessed at – and, ringing around the market, there is no shortage of such rampant speculation – what followed has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Legal Business

Kirkland’s debt superstar Sachdev leads team exit as Paul Weiss launches English law practice

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Strategic recruitment Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Debt finance rainmaker Neel Sachdev (pictured) has led a team defecting from Kirkland & Ellis to Paul Weiss, in what will be seen as a major coup for the Wall Street firm’s City ambitions.

The hire of Sachdev is arguably the most influential transfer in the City’s history since buyout star David Higgins left Freshfields for Kirkland in 2017. It is a serious show of intent for Paul Weiss in London, establishing as it does an English law offering for the first time.

Also moving to Paul Weiss with Sachdev are debt finance partner Kanesh Balasubramaniam and capital markets partners Matthew Merkle and Deirdre Jones.

Sachdev has spent two decades as one of the firm’s longest-serving London partners and top earners. With top-tier financial sponsor clients including Apollo, Bain Capital and Strategic Value Partners, his expertise lies in multi-jurisdictional leveraged buyouts and complex financing transactions across Europe, the US and Asia.

Legal Business understands that Paul Weiss will be hiring other senior lawyers in London over the next coming months.

‘We appreciate their contributions to the partnership and wish them the best at their new firm,’ said a spokesperson at Kirkland.

Paul Weiss has also hired a four-partner team from Kirkland in New York led by debt finance partner Eric Wedel and including Ben Steadman.

The London hires mean that Paul Weiss is following in the footsteps of Cravath, which in March hired Philip Stopford and Korey Fevzi from Shearman & Sterling, in establishing an English law capability.

The incoming four partners will be joining Paul Weiss’ existing three partners in London, as indicated on the firm’s website: David Carmona and Adam Wollstein, promoted to partnership in December 2018 and January 2021 respectively, along with David Lakhdhir, who co-founded the office in 2001 alongside Mark Bergman, who gas been serving as of counsel in Washington DC since 2021.

Less than two weeks ago, Kirkland also lost distinguished corporate partner Roger Johnson, who is recognised as a top individual for high-value private equity in The Legal 500. After more than seven years at Kirkland, Johnson left the firm after Kirkland’s management discovered that he was in discussions to take a team with him to a rival firm. Conversely the same week, Kirkland hired the well-respected private equity partner Alvaro Membrillera from Paul Weiss, where he was London managing partner.

Elisha.Juttla@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Slaughter and May leads as Freshfields and Paul Weiss take key roles on £900m Michael Kors buyout of Jimmy Choo

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Adviser reviews Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerPaul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & GarrisonSlaughter and May

Slaughter and May, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom are all advising on Michael Kors’ £900m offer for luxury British fashion company Jimmy Choo.

Under the agreement, the shoemaker would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Michael Kors. Its shareholders will receive £2.3 in cash for each of their Jimmy Choo shares, 36p above the £1.68 share price the day before Jimmy Choo’s parent JAB Luxury announced it would launch a formal sale process in April.

Slaughter and May acted for Michael Kors in the UK, while Paul Weiss advised the company on US corporate and financing aspects. The Slaughters team is comprised of London-based corporate and commercial partner Jeffrey Twentyman, competition partner Lisa Wright and tax partner Sara Luder.

Paul Weiss team’s team was led by New York-based corporate partners Justin Hamill and Tom de la Bastide, alongside co-head of North America capital markets and securities John Kennedy.

Freshfields acted for Jimmy Choo via corporate partner Christopher Mort, with support from corporate partner Alison Smith, employment partner Nick Squire and antitrust partner Alex Potter.

Skadden represented Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as financial advisers. The Skadden team included M&A New York-based partner Paul Schnell and Washington-based partner Jeremy London, as well as London-based corporate partner Scott Hopkins and banking partner Clive Wells.

The boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction but has yet to be voted in by Jimmy Choo’s shareholders.

The deal will be subject to regulatory approvals in the EU, US and Russia and is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of 2017.

When Jimmy Choo floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2014, the issuer, private investment firm JAB Holdings owned by the German billionaire Reimann family, instructed Freshfields with Mort as leading partner. Hogan Lovells acted for Jimmy Choo at the time on its long-term incentive plans, while Linklaters advised on refinancing matters.

The Michael Kors offer is part of a string of foreign takeovers generating work in the city this year as foreign buyers take advantage of the drop in the value of the pound since Britain voted to leave the EU.

Georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

‘Firing on all cylinders’: Freshfields appoints Paul Weiss lawyer to head US IP team

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Strategic recruitment Freshfields Bruckhaus DeringerPaul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringerhas appointed Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrisonlawyer Menachem Kaplan (pictured) as its first partner to head up the firm’s intellectual property (IP) capabilities in the US.

Kaplan joins Freshfields today (24 July) as the firm’s first IP partner to be based in New York. He joins Freshfield’s international IP offering led by three existing IP partners elsewhere – Avril Martindale and Giles Pratt in London and Frank-Erich Hufnagel in Dusseldorf.

His practice focuses on IP, with an emphasis on licensing, joint ventures, emerging technologies and settlements.

An experienced patent lawyer, Kaplan has worked for the last 11 years at Paul Weiss, his latest role as a counsel in the firm’s corporate department. Previously he was a foreign associate in Argentinian firm Marval, O’Farrell & Mairal in Buenos Aires for a year.

Kaplan’s key mandates include the Nortel bankruptcy and the sale of the Nortel patent to Rockstar Consortium in 2011, where he represented the buyers, including Ericsson and Microsoft. He also represented General Atlantic in March this year on in their strategic investment in General Information Services.

Peter Lyons, Freshfields’ US managing partner said that the ability to navigate the tech space ‘with sophistication’ is critical to the firm’s clients. Co-head of the firm’s global M&A practice Matthew Herman also said that Kaplan’s ability to ‘handle the most complex of IP-driven transactions for clients will be immediately accretive to our strong team of NY-based transactional lawyers’.

Kaplan told Legal Business that Freshfields has been very busy in the US ‘across the board’ and that ‘IP is becoming more and more of a global strategy, so he welcomed the opportunity to join a global platform already firing on all cylinders.’

He said he will continue to execute the firm’s existing corporate strategy.

‘Getting additional corporate mandates, with IP as key, will help support the growth of the corporate department and the global platform,’ he added.

In the last two years, Freshfields boosted its US platform with a string of star hires including Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson corporate trio Valerie Ford Jacob, Michael Lewitt and Paul Tropp, Shearman & Sterling’s M&A veteran Peter Lyons, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s experienced corporate disputes specialist Linda Martin and, most recently late last year, corporate partner Aly El Hamamsy from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Paul Weiss makes rare London hire in blow to Simpson Thacher’s corporate department

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Strategic recruitment Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & GarrisonSimpson Thacher & Bartlett

In a rare lateral move for the US firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is to appoint Simpson Thacher & Bartlett corporate partner Alvaro Membrillera.

Membrillera has been at Simpson Thacher since 2001. His practice focuses on private equity mergers and acquisitions and high-yield offerings for both underwriters and private equity sponsors in Europe and Latin America. Membrillera’s clients have included KKR, The Blackstone Group, Spanish multi-national engineering company Gestamp and Palace Entertainment. Originally from Spain, Membrillera is both US and Spanish qualified.

He will join Paul Weiss’ two London-based partners, capital markets partner Mark Bergman and corporate partner David Lakhdhir. The disputes leader has historically had a small London base, focused on core corporate practice areas and serving as a European platform for its litigation department.

In April last year, Paul Weiss made headlines with the eye-catching hire of Cravath, Swaine & Moore partner Scott Barshay in its New York office. One of the most prominent M&A lawyers in the US, key deals include advising 3G Capital and HJ Heinz in the $60bn Kraft-Heinz merger; Anheuser-Busch InBev in its $107bn acquisition of SABMiller; advising Cameron International in its $15bn sale to Schlumberger and acting for Honeywell in its $90bn proposal to acquire United Technologies.

Meanwhile, Simpson Thacher made a rare London hire at the end of last year, taking on Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Ben Spiers to boost its M&A practice. Widely tipped as a potential successor to heavyweight Adam Signy, Spiers’ practice focuses on the TMT sector.

Speirs’ recent mandates include advising Hewlett-Packard Enterprises on the sale of its software business for $8.8bn to UK tech firm Micro Focus, and acting for SoftBank on its £23.4bn deal to acquire UK tech flagbearer ARM Holdings.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Paul Weiss, Linklaters and Freshfields alumni lock horns as Kraft Heinz drops $143bn deal for Unilever

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Corporate LinklatersPaul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

In what would have been the second largest M&A deal in history, Unilever has rejected a $143bn takeover approach from Kraft Heinz as Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Linklaters take opposite sides.

Unilever, the company behind brands such as Dove and Ben & Jerry’s, said it had rejected the deal last Friday (17 February) and over the weekend Kraft said it would drop its pursuit for the consumer goods company.

Linklaters won a key mandate on the rejected bid for Anglo-Dutch Unilever. Key advisers for the firm include global consumer goods co-head Paul McNicholl and corporate partner Nick Rumsby.

Paul Weiss is acting for Warren Buffet’s food company. US corporate veteran Scott Barshay is a longtime adviser to Kraft Heinz. He recently arrived from rival Cravath, Swaine & Moore after 25 years, in one of the landmark lateral hires in the New York market.

The bid comes two years after Kraft merged with Heinz in a deal worth $46bn. Barshay had acted for 3G Capital and HJ Heinz on the deal.

Meanwhile, top Magic Circle alumni are acting for the main financial advisers on the deal. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s former rainmaker Mark Rawlinson is acting for Morgan Stanley, the financial adviser to Unilever, opposite former Freshfields colleague Will Lawes, who is acting for Lazard on the Kraft side. Lawes, who was senior parner at the Magic Circle firm moved to the bank in January this year.

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

Read more on the City’s leading deal teams in the feature: ‘The M&A Report – To have and have not’