Beleaguered Dundas & Wilson is shortly to lose London private equity partners Simon Sale and Nadim Meer to Mishcon de Reya, while City corporate partner Julian Mathews joined Wedlake Bell in March.
The departures are the latest in a series of partner exits from the Scottish leader in recent months.
Mathews specialises in M&A, private equity and corporate real estate. He has a particular focus on the hotel, restaurant and leisure sectors.
Sale and Meer will move to 300-lawyer Mishcon, along with senior associate Allison Keyse, once the terms of their exits have been agreed. They will join current Mishcon private equity partners Kevin McCarthy and Andrew Rimmington, and the intention is that they will bring clients with them. Before joining Dundas, both Sale and Meer worked at Hammonds (now Squire Sanders).
‘It’s a painful period for Dundas, being one of the greatest Scottish firms, but it’s necessary.’
Douglas Connell, Turcan Connell
The expansion of Mishcon’s private equity offering is of little surprise, given the firm’s recent success in providing commercial legal services to private capital and wealthy entrepreneurial clients. Head of corporate, Nick Davis, said the private equity team ‘has always acted for high-net-worth family offices, based on the private equity model, and investment holdings with a three to five-year exit’.
However, the latest exits are another blow for Dundas, which has suffered multiple departures over the last year. Most notable was the resignation of long-serving Edinburgh corporate partner Michael Polson last November, as well as former Stephenson Harwood chief executive John Pike, who left Dundas’ London office after less than a year to join Osborne Clarke in February.
Other recent exits include technology and media expert Paul Graham who left for Field Fisher Waterhouse, while restructuring head Claire Massie moved to Pinsent Masons. Real estate specialist Shane Toal and disputes partner Martin Thomas also went to Osborne Clarke and Wragge & Co respectively.
In a statement, Dundas said it was continuing to focus its London office on ‘key areas of strength’. This includes work flowing from the cross-border UK real estate team recently hired from Semple Fraser and a reappointment earlier this year by Land Securities to its panel.
Co-managing partner Allan Wernham said the firm had been ‘very clear’ in the last six months about its strategy and ‘for London that means a focus on playing to our strengths by investing in the areas we are best known for’.
‘Taking this approach will enable our corporate practice to play a key role in delivering our strategic ambitions for high-growth sectors across the London marketplace,’ he added.
Douglas Connell, senior partner of Turcan Connell – which spun out from Dundas in the late ‘90s – said that the Scots leader was moving to address tough markets.
Dundas was one of the worst performing firms in the LB100 last year, posting a 12% fall in revenues to £54.5m, while profit per lawyer was down 36% to £49,000.
‘I think that it’s one of the Scottish legal firms having to be repositioned,’ said Connell. ‘That’s partly the legacy of HBOS and RBS relocating. But Dundas & Wilson, as a leading corporate firm, is not alone in seeing the consequences of a big downturn in fee income from the banking sector and M&A, which have hugely declined.’
He added: ‘In that kind of process, I think that they are actually making tough decisions. It’s the ones who haven’t done so that will suffer. It’s a painful period for Dundas, being one of the greatest Scottish firms, but it’s necessary.’
However, not everyone in the market is convinced that Dundas has decided on a clear strategy yet. ‘It doesn’t seem to have identified its direction of travel,’ said a partner at a rival firm.
The firm declined to comment. Dundas has been linked to merger discussions for some time now, having previously gone through failed discussions with Bircham Dyson Bell in 2011 and being linked with a takeover by Eversheds more recently.