Spanish firm Pérez-Llorca has made a key investment into the City and is set to launch a London office at the end of this year, after choosing what it described as ‘Europe’s finance capital’ in a bid to grow its financial practice.
Constituting its first foreign office and set to become operational in December 2014, the Madrid-headquartered firm will not practice English law but will advise its clients on Spanish law aspects of transactional work, as well as boost its marketing efforts.
Managing the venture will be corporate partner Fernando Quicios, who is set to re-locate to London along with a team from the 130-lawyer firm. Quicios said: ‘Many of our clients are foreign companies who require our services due to our knowledge of the Spanish market, but we also work with many Spanish companies with interests in the UK. We believe that this opening will allow us to expand and bring our services closer to both types of clients’.
Senior partner Pedro Pérez-Llorca added: ‘The decision to expand our office network outside of Spain, and having chosen London as the first seat, is explained by the demand we had been seeing from our clients, specifically in the financial and capital markets areas. The objectives of becoming international are to offer our current and potential clients a service that is even more global and to be able to accompany them in the development of all their projects. For this reason, it was necessary for us to be present in the financial capital of Europe’.
Others currently operating in London includes Spain’s big four firms Garrigues, Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira, Uría Menéndez, and Gómez-Acebo & Pombo.
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk