Legal Business

Financials 2015/16: Travers bucks the market to post double digit turnover growth

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Financial results 2015/16 Travers Smith
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Travers Smith has posted its seventh year of revenue growth, boosting turnover to £120m, up 13% on the previous year.

The private equity and finance specialists also scored record profits per equity partner (PEP), breaking the £1m barrier for the first time. PEP was up 7% on the previous year to £1.015m from £935,000 in 2014/15. The growth boost comes after the firm saw turnover break the £100m mark in 2014/15, when revenue increased 9%.

Travers managing partner David Patient said: ‘Despite the uncertainty caused by the Referendum this has been another excellent year for the firm.’

Patient (pictured) said the EU referendum result and the process of Brexit were likely to have a significant effect on clients: ‘This year will, undoubtedly, present a number of challenges for our clients, this firm, and the profession as a whole, as the implications of the decision to leave the EU unfold.’

Senior partner Chris Hale added: ‘The huge uncertainty caused by the result of the Referendum will result in a difficult environment for transactional work for a while.’

Despite a relatively slow year for M&A, in May Travers acted on the £1bn Argus Media deal which saw General Atlantic take a majority stake in the company, with Hale leading the advice for Argus’s management. The firm also advised Micro Focus on its $540m acquisition of US company Serena Software, with corporate head Spencer Summerfield leading for Travers.

The continued rise in turnover for Travers has not been reflected across the market and other leading London firms. The downturn in transactions in the lead up to the referendum and a slump in property deals have affected some UK firms.

Peer firm Macfarlanes saw growth stall after a highly successful 2014/15 in results reported earlier this week. The City firm’s turnover was up less than 1% after growing 17% the previous year. PEP was down 8.8%, having jumped 30% the year before. Macfarlanes senior partner Charles Martin told Legal Business they had no complaints about transactional activity at the firm, but added: ‘We said in our results last year there would be a spike.’

Both Travers and Macfarlanes recently announced changes to their associate pay schemes, with Travers increasing newly qualified pay to £71,500, higher than that of Magic Circle firm Slaughter and May.

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

 

Legal Business

Travers Smith matches Slaughters associate base pay as indies beat Brexit woes to lift salaries

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Salaries MacfarlanesTravers Smith
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Despite post-Brexit referendum market turbulence, independent firms Travers Smith and Macfarlanes have both elevated their newly-qualified (NQ) pay levels, with the former matching Slaughter and May’s newly-qualified pay level of £71,500.

Travers NQs will receive £71,500, while 1PQE solicitors receive £79,000, 2PQE get £91,000 and 3PQEs receive £100,000 3PQE.

Macfarlanes also pushed up its pay brackets, raising NQ pay to £71,000 and 1PQE to £77,000-£79,000, 2PQE to £80,000-£88,000 and 3PQE to £85,000-£98,000, with the firm not using a fixed lockstep.

Solicitors’ salary bonuses were lifted from a maximum of 15% to 25% paid in July, as well as the addition of a potential uncapped firm wide bonus in October dependent on the Macfarlanes’ performance.

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) also recently ploughed into the City salary war with a boost to associate pay, raising NQ base salaries to between £82,000 and £90,000.

While in May, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer announced it had folded its discretionary bonus system into NQ salaries, leaving young lawyers with an extra £17,500 in their pockets with pay rising 26% to £85,000.

The salary rises come amidst fears from some UK firms of pay freezes after a challenging first half of 2016 and market volatility post-EU referendum.

Staff at BLP were notified of their pay freeze on Tuesday (5 July). The move will affect all UK-based staff apart from partners who take a share of the profits. Pay reviews were postponed as of 1 July until 1 November 2016.

On Tuesday (5 July), Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) became the first firm to freeze pay for UK staff following the referendum to leave the EU. The firm’s income has fallen 2% to £254m in 2015/16. BLP said the salary freeze for associates, paralegals, business development and other back-office staff was the ‘prudent thing to do’.

matthew.field@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Another bumper round at Travers Smith as City thoroughbred makes up six to partner

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Partnership promotions Travers Smith
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Travers Smith has appointed six lawyers to its partnership in another sizeable promotion round for the City thoroughbred.

 

Although one promotion down on last year’s seven-strong round, it constitutes an upswing on the previous two years where two promotions were made in 2014 and three in 2013.

Set to take effect from 1 July, the appointments include two women and cover a broad range of areas including intellectual property (IP), competition, corporate finance and securities and tax.

Those rewarded include US securities practitioner Dan McNamee, who focuses on cross-border equity and debt capital markets transactions, as well as competition specialist Stephen Whitfield, who has worked on antitrust investigations and previously advised Pace on the merger control aspects of its £1.4bn acquisition by ARRIS Group.

Senior partner Chris Hale (pictured) commented: ‘I am very pleased that again this year we have elected as partners six outstanding lawyers, all of whom either trained with Travers Smith or spent their formative years with the firm.’

Hale told Legal Business: ‘How we promote is a combination of various factors and this year we happen to have a cohort of very strong candidates – we can see growth opportunities in each of them.’

Travers, which is best known for its highly-rated private equity practice, has been one of strongest-performing players in the UK top 50 over the last years, hiking revenues by 47% since 2010, with profits per partner hitting £947,000 for the 2014/15 financial year.

The promotions, however, follow a rare departure for the 64-partner City practice, with corporate partner Helen Croke this month resigning for Ropes & Gray. Having qualified at Travers in 2001, Croke has made a name for herself as the relationship partner for buyout house Bridgepoint. She will join the team of former Travers Smith private equity head Phil Sanderson, who joined Ropes in 2014.

Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Travers partner promotions 2016:

Louisa Chambers, commercial, IP and technology

Paul Kenny, real estate

Dan McNamee, corporate finance and US securities law

Barry Newman, finance

Elena Rowlands, tax

Stephen Whitfield, competition

Legal Business

Ropes continues City buyout push with hire of Travers star Helen Croke

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Strategic recruitment Ropes & GrayTravers Smith
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Having landed Travers Smith private equity veteran Phil Sanderson in 2014, top 50 US law firm Ropes & Gray has returned to the leading private equity shop to recruit rising star Helen Croke.

Croke, who counts London-based buyout house Bridgepoint as one of her main clients, leaves Travers Smith after 17 years. Her departure comes as a reverse to the 300-lawyer City thoroughbred, which has so far had a strong record in retaining key partners despite the decade-long push by predatory US rivals into its core private equity heartlands. Croke will work alongside Sanderson, who formerly headed Travers’ private equity team before handing over to Paul Dolman.

Mike Goetz, Ropes’ London managing partner said: ‘Helen will enhance the already very strong team that we have built in London over the past six years. She is one of the most outstanding lawyers of her generation and her arrival will give us further capacity to not only serve our current client base but also build on existing opportunities.’

Croke qualified at Travers in 2001 and was made a partner just seven years later. She is a go-to adviser for the likes of Silverfleet Capital, which she helped to spin out of Prudential’s fund management arm M&G in 2007, and Arle Capital Partners, which Croke advised on its spin-off from Candover in 2010.

A regular for Bridgepoint’s smaller-cap business, Bridgepoint Development Capital, Croke has acted on a string of deals for the house including its sale of healthcare company Quotient Clinical to GHO Capital in December. Croke more recently handled its acquisition of a 40% stake in online lead generation business MVF in February 2015 and £42m purchase of e-document management systems Phlexglobal from Inflexion Private Equity in July 2014. (The general counsel of Bridgepoint is former Travers Smith partner Charles Barter, who switched in 2008.)

Boston-bred Ropes has been one of the fastest-growing US law firms in London since launching in 2009, making a sustained push in Europe’s private equity and leveraged finance market underwritten by mandates for longstanding US sponsor clients such as TPG and Bain Capital. Ropes is already the 13th largest overseas law firm in the City, with 133 lawyers. This represents a 37% increase in headcount over the past year.

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

For more on US firms in the City, subscribers can see our 2016 Global London report

Legal Business

Life During Law: Stephen Paget-Brown, Travers Smith

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Life During Law Travers Smith
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My career couldn’t be better. Nice work, nice clients, good money… The culture of this firm lends itself to being an enjoyable place to work. We don’t have the bureaucracy or warfare other firms have.

I started at Clifford Turner. Matthew Layton was still in shorts. The head of commercial litigation in the early 1980s was a South African called Leon Boshoff – very tall, powerfully built… Behind that fearsome appearance he had a razor-sharp mind. One of the cases involved Lloyd’s of London. He took them on four square. He taught us to be fearless and not judge a situation by: ‘Well, this is a reputable institution, they can’t have done anything wrong.’ Drill down. Find the evidence. Form your own judgement.

Legal Business

‘An important victory’: Travers Smith gets another Tchenguiz claim dismissed

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Litigation Travers Smith
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Travers Smith has secured a win against British entrepreneur Vincent Tchenguiz, as a Commercial Court judge dismissed a £2.2bn claim against Jóhannes Rúnar Jóhannsson, who had helped wind up Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

The claim was part of November 2014 suit brought by Tchenguiz and related parties against Kaupthing, Jóhannsson, Grant Thornton and two of its partners, Stephen Akers and Hossein Hamedani.

They had alleged that Akers, Hamedani and Jóhannsson conspired to pass information, dishonestly, to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), in order to instigate and encourage an investigation by the SFO into Tchenguiz and his related companies in the context of Kaupthing’s collapse in October 2008, and that they did so for their own commercial gain.

In July 2015 the Commercial Court dismissed the claim as against Kaupthing, while today (20 April), Mr Justice Knowles has dismissed the claim against Jóhannsson.

The judge said the claim had already been settled by virtue of an agreement entered into by earlier proceedings.

However a separate claim made by Robert Tchenguiz continues against Grant Thornton and its two partners Akers and Hamedani, and the same argument used by Jóhannsson is also available to the remaining defendants.

Travers Smith partner Stephen Paget-Brown (pictured), who led the team on the case said: ‘This is an important victory for Jóhannsson which, subject to any attempted appeal, brings the claim brought by Vincent Tchenguiz against both of our clients to an end.’

He added: ‘This is a claim which should never have been brought: it is clear to me that the very serious allegations made in the claim about the conduct of Jóhannsson had absolutely no basis in fact, and were pursued despite the absence of any evidence whatsoever supporting those allegations’

Paget-Brown’s team on the case also included dispute resolution partner Huw Jenkin. Travers Smith instructed 4 Stone Buildings’ Queens Counsel Robert Miles, who was supported by Jeremy Goldring QC of South Square. Tchenguiz was advised by McGuire Woods, which instructed Romie Tager QC of Selborne Chambers and David Cavender QC of One Essex Court.

victoria.young@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Deal watch: Corporate activity in March 2016

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Corporate Travers Smith
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TRAVERS SMITH ADVISES ON $540M SOFTWARE DEAL

Travers Smith and Kirkland & Ellis landed lead advisory roles on the $540m acquisition by Micro Focus of US firm Serena Software. In March, UK software firm Micro Focus said it would acquire Serena Software on a cash and debt-free basis for $540m. Travers Smith acted for longstanding client Micro Focus while Kirkland acted for Serena Software.

 

Legal Business

A&O, Macfarlanes and Travers Smith to contest top prize at the Legal Business Awards

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Allen & OveryMacfarlanesTravers Smith
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Allen & Overy, Macfarlanes and Travers Smith are among the firms competing to be named Law Firm of the Year at this year’s Legal Business Awards.

Also shortlisted in the flagship category for the awards, which take place at Grosvenor House Hotel next Thursday (7 April), are Mishcon de Reya, Pinsent Masons, Stephenson Harwood and Stewarts Law.

The full shortlists, revealed below, will see high-calibre law firms, in-house teams and individuals competing across 23 categories, including 11 practice area awards.

The finalists for the coveted In-House Team of the Year award are BT, Funding Circle, InterContinental Hotels Group, Roche Products, SABMiller and Skyscanner.

Meanwhile, Ashurst, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Shearman & Sterling are among the firms fighting it out to be named Corporate Team of the Year. In the Dispute Resolution category, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Slaughter and May and a joint nomination for Herbert Smith Freehills and Jones Day are among the contenders.

The winners, which will be unveiled at the gala ceremony hosted by journalist and broadcaster Nick Robinson, will be decided by an independent judging panel for the second year running.

This year’s panel comprises: Nilema Bhakta-Jones, group legal director of Ascential Group; Claire Chapman, general counsel (GC) and company secretary of Daily Mail and General Trust; Kirsty Cooper, group GC and company secretary at Aviva; former vice-president and GC of group legal affairs & compliance at RB Claire Debney; Chris Fowler, GC UK Commercial for BT; FT GC Dan Guildford; Michael Herlihy, GC at Smiths Group; Marks and Spencer’s head of legal Robert Ivens; Alison Kay, group GC & company secretary at National Grid; Zoopla Property Group GC Ned Staple; Nyeem Syed, assistant GC, financial & risk at Thomson Reuters; Tony Williams of Jomati; and Suzanne Wise, group GC and company secretary of Network Rail.

Major winners last year included Osborne Clarke, which was named Law Firm of the Year and Macfarlanes, which won the Corporate Team of the Year award, while Royal Mail walked away with the In-House prize.

mark.mcateer@legalease.co.uk

Click here for further information about the awards.

Practice area awards shortlists

TMT Team of the Year

Dentons

DLA Piper

King & Wood Mallesons

Linklaters

Olswang

Powell Gilbert

Finance Team of the Year

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

Herbert Smith Freehills

Macfarlanes

Pinsent Masons

Simmons & Simmons

Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Restructuring Team of the Year

Allen & Overy

Hogan Lovells

Sidley Austin

Simmons & Simmons

Weil, Gotshal & Manges

White & Case

Competition Team of the Year

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Linklaters

Macfarlanes

Nabarro

Norton Rose Fulbright

Slaughter and May

Energy and Infrastructure Team of the Year

Ashurst

DLA Piper

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy

Norton Rose Fulbright

Pinsent Masons

Stephenson Harwood

Dispute Resolution Team of the Year

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton

Herbert Smith Freehills/Jones Day

Hogan Lovells

Humphries Kerstetter

Mishcon de Reya

Slaughter and May

Private Client Team of the Year

Boodle Hatfield

Charles Russell Speechlys

Irwin Mitchell

McDermott Will & Emery

Penningtons Manches

Taylor Wessing

Insurance Team of the Year

BLM

DWF

Eversheds

Herbert Smith Freehills

Norton Rose Fulbright

RPC

Corporate Team of the Year

Ashurst

Clifford Chance/Norton Rose Fulbright

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Gowling WLG

Jones Day

Shearman & Sterling

Squire Patton Boggs

Private Equity Team of the Year

Addleshaw Goddard

Clifford Chance

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Latham & Watkins

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

Travers Smith

White & Case

Real Estate Team of the Year

Burges Salmon

Eversheds

Hogan Lovells

King & Wood Mallesons

Mayer Brown

Nabarro

Winckworth Sherwood


Merit awards shortlists

Boutique Law Firm of the Year

Campbell Johnston Clark

Kemp Little

MJ Hudson

Radiant Law

Signature Litigation

Tapestry Compliance

Three Crowns

Lawyer of the Year

Susan Crichton, TSB

Ian Forrester QC, White & Case

David Morley, Allen & Overy

Chris Saul, Slaughter and May

Penelope Warne, CMS

CSR Programme of the Year

CMS

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

ITV

Linklaters

Reed Smith

Simmons & Simmons

International Firm of the Year

Al Tamimi & Company

Arthur Cox

Garrigues

Goltsblat BLP

Harneys

Magnusson

Noerr

Rising Star In-House Counsel of the Year

Carole Deadman, Abbey Life Assurance

Henry Gardener, Markel International

Annaliese Hemsley, BATLaw

Daniel Whitehead, Citibank

Matthew Wilson, Uber

Caroline Withers, Virgin Media

In-House Team of the Year

BT

Funding Circle

InterContinental Hotels

Group

Roche Products

SABMiller

Skyscanner

Management Partner of the Year

Ray Berg , Osborne Clarke

Nick Buckworth, Shearman & Sterling

James Burns, Clyde & Co

Michael Chissick, Fieldfisher

Tim Eyles, Taylor Wessing

Chris Lowe/Lothar Wegener, Watson Farley & Williams

Margaret Robertson, Withers

US Law Firm of the Year

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

Boies, Schiller & Flexner

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

Latham & Watkins

Paul Hastings

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

Ropes & Gray

Legal Innovator of the Year

DAC Beachcroft

DLA Piper

Eversheds

Gowling WLG

Lawyers On Demand

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Legal Technology Team of the Year

Axiom

Berwin Leighton Paisner

Cooley

DWF

Kennedys

Osborne Clarke

RPC

National/Regional Firm of the Year

Ashfords

Bond Dickinson

Brodies

Browne Jacobson

Foot Anstey

Shoosmiths

Stevens & Bolton

Law Firm of the Year

Allen & Overy

Macfarlanes

Mishcon de Reya

Pinsent Masons

Stephenson Harwood

Stewarts Law

Travers Smith

Legal Business

Travers Smith and Kirkland take lead roles as Micro Focus agrees $540m acquisition of Serena Software

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Corporate Kirkland & EllisTravers Smith
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Against sluggish levels of transactional activity of late, Travers Smith and Kirkland & Ellis have landed lead advisory roles on the $540m acquisition by Micro Focus of US firm Serena Software.

UK software firm Micro Focus will acquire Serena Software on a cash and debt free basis for $540m in cash, to be settled through the repayment of its net indebtedness (estimated at approximately $252m) and the purchase of Serena Software’s entire share capital for approximately $288m, subject to customary working capital and other adjustments.

To fund the bid, Micro Focus will raise about $216m through a placing underwritten by Numis Securities.

Travers Smith corporate head Spencer Summerfield advised the firm’s longstanding client Micro Focus on the deal with Serena Software, which provides software that can track and make changes to other application systems during the development process.

Summerfield was supported by tax partner Simon Yates, while US advice was provided by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. A team led by Summerfield also acted for Micro Focus on its high-profile merger with the Attachmate Group in 2014.

Kirkland & Ellis corporate partner Travis Nelson led a team based in Palo Alto advising Serena Software.

The deal is conditional on competition clearances in the USA and Germany and is expected to take place in May 2016.

Summerfield said: ‘Micro Focus’ acquisition of Serena Software is a significant development, demonstrating the continued success of Micro Focus in executing its buy-and-build strategy. We are very pleased to have assisted Micro Focus on this important transaction, which will help consolidate Micro Focus’ position as a global leader in the software marketplace.’

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Dealwatch: Magic Circle trio and Travers Smith advise as Carlyle sells RAC stake to new investors

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Corporate Clifford ChanceFreshfields Bruckhaus DeringerLinklatersTravers Smith
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Clifford Chance (CC), Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have all landed advisory roles alongside Travers Smith on a deal which will see CVC Capital Partners form a partnership with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC to invest in the roadside assistance provider RAC through the purchase of Carlyle’s stake in the latter.

The RAC is the second-largest roadside assistance provider across the UK and has approximately 8.6m members as of 30 September, 2015. During Carlyle’s ownership, revenues grew from £417m in 2010 to £498m in 2014.

CC advised longstanding client CVC with a team led by corporate partner David Pearson. The firm also recently advised CVC, which holds $60bn in funds under management, on its $150m acquisition of a 50% stake in Arteria Networks Corporation, a Japan-based telecoms carrier focused on enterprise customers.

Linklaters advised Carlyle on the exit with relationship partner Alex Woodward leading, while Freshfields advised GIC with global financial investors group co-head David Higgins leading a team.

Travers Smith advised RAC management on the transaction with senior partner Chris Hale leading a team alongside corporate partner Adam Orr.

Last year Freshfields, Linklaters and Travers combined for the same clients as Carlyle sold half its majority stake in RAC to GIC.

The transaction is subject to approvals and is expected to close in early 2016.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

For more on deal activity subscribers can read: ‘Private equity ABC – the brutally simple world of a private equity lawyer’