It has been an expansive start of the year in terms of partner hires for a group of finance-focused US shops with tight London operations.
First Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s City restructuring practice was decimated by the departure of four partners to Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, led by global financial restructuring co-chair Yushan Ng, with Jacqueline Ingram, Karen McMaster and Sinjini Saha following him. McMaster and Ingram had already followed Ng in changing firms in 2013 from Linklaters, where they were associates. Saha was made partner when she joined Cadwalader from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in 2015.
Clients of the team include brand name sponsors Oaktree, KKR, Centerbridge Capital Partners and The Blackstone Group. The hires tripled Milbank’s London restructuring partner headcount and came as the firm’s 40-year-old City office started the year with a hiring spree to strengthen its finance capabilities. A few days later the firm tapped another US rival, Shearman & Sterling, for its head of EMEA capital markets, high-yield specialist Apostolos Gkoutzinis. These additions brought the firm’s City partner headcount to 27.
Milbank chair Scott Edelman told Legal Business: ‘We only look for growth when we see real superstars in the market. We could have hired [these partners] any time but it just so happened that two extraordinary opportunities came along at roughly the same time.’
Meanwhile, another London restructuring partner also announced she was leaving Cadwalader on the same day. Brown Rudnick recruited head of loan portfolios, debt and claims trading Louisa Watt. She will co-lead both Brown Rudnick’s European finance and special situations practice and the firm’s distressed debt and claims trading practice group.
The largest practice group in Cadwalader’s London office at the beginning of the year, there are now two partners left in the US firm’s City financial restructuring practice, including office managing partner Gregory Petrick.
‘We are in an age of free agency and fluidity. At present there is a very active lateral market in London,’ said Petrick. ‘Financial restructuring will continue to be a key focus for us in London.’
marco.cillario@legalease.co.uk
Moves of the month
- Kirkland & Ellis continued to make waves on both sides of the Atlantic with the hire of one of Manhattan’s top M&A names, Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Eric Schiele. Schiele – who had been at Cravath for more than 17 years, making partner in 2008 – will transfer to Kirkland’s New York arm, after the firm in December recruited Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s most prominent London private equity partner David Higgins.
- US firms also continued their march into the City’s disputes scene, with Latham & Watkins announcing the hire of two London litigation partners from Hogan Lovells. Jon Holland and Andrea Monks focus on financial services litigation and related regulatory work, two areas currently highly in demand.
- White & Case recruited Weil, Gotshal & Manges’ former London-based international dispute resolution co-head Hannah Field-Lowes. She recently worked on the £1bn proceedings brought by Ingenious Media against HMRC on the tax treatment of a number of film production companies.
- Ropes & Gray also boosted its City litigation firepower hiring Clifford Chance (CC) white-collar crime partner Judith Seddon to be co-head of its London international risk practice. Seddon joined CC in 2008 as a senior associate, became a director of business crime and regulatory enforcement in 2011 and was made up to partner in 2014.
- Going the other way, finance partner Matthew Cox quit Ropes for Baker McKenzie. Cox has acted on leveraged finance mandates for clients including Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman.
- Elsewhere, Mishcon de Reya hired Addleshaw Goddard’s equity capital markets head Tim Field. Field recently advised on the IPO of payment technology company SafeCharge. Before Addleshaw Goddard, he was head of the Middle East offices of Simmons & Simmons between 2009 and 2012. Field will now lead Mishcon’s own equity capital markets practice.
- Osborne Clarke (OC) hired its second private equity partner from Squire Patton Boggs in four months, as Alistair Francis joined Tim Hewens at the firm. Francis specialises in industrials, technology, retail, media and entertainment and brings private equity partner UK headcount at OC up to 12.
- Clyde & Co brought in London insurance partners Mandip Sagoo and Angus Duncan from Mayer Brown. Sagoo has experience in litigation, regulatory proceedings and investigations, while Duncan has acted for insurers in the financial lines markets.
- Fieldfisher hired Shepherd and Wedderburn data privacy partner Judy Krieg. She will assist both the firm’s privacy, security and information law group and the corporate crime team.
- The last London partner of ailing Sedgwick, whose fate remained unknown at the start of the year, Edward Smerdon joined professional services giant Aon as head of legal and technical in London. Former Sedgwick London managing partner Smerdon was previously at RPC until 2010.