The Finance View – repositioning DLA’s finance team for the firm’s global ambitions

It has already been a headline-grabbing start to the year for DLA Piper’s finance team. The firm turned heads with the decision to bring in serial entrepreneur Maurice Allen as a consultant, swiftly followed with a leadership change, as it was announced Leeds managing partner Sarah Day will head up the UK finance practice, with Martin Bartlam (pictured) promoted to international head of finance and projects.

While historically known for mid-market deal finance and classic volume work for retail banking clients, in recent years DLA has striven to push the practice up the value chain, particularly in the structured debt arena. The practice, which currently makes up 17% of UK turnover, including projects, has been a target for investment for years.

The firm – certainly the most finance-centric of its nationally-bred peers like Eversheds, Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard – has interesting positioning in the market but a tricky balancing act to sustain between its regional roots and global ambitions.

The global aspirations have been evident in the kind of senior recruits DLA has ponied up for in recent years. In 2013 Clifford Chance high-yield partner Tony Lopez joined and this was followed up with Slaughter and May finance veteran Mark Dwyer in 2015, who is now head of the London practice. Additionally, at the start of the year structured finance partner Andy Kolacki joined from Latham & Watkins after more than a decade with the US firm.

The traffic has not all been one way, with DLA veterans Philip Butler and David Miles last summer decamping for Dechert in a significant loss. The exit of Butler, who was financial services global co-chair, alongside Miles puts a notable dent in the debt finance practice and institutional links. The duo’s clients included HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Barclays.

Reverses aside, DLA is currently striving to follow its well-regarded US finance practice by expanding its European client base with sponsors. Dwyer says: ‘Traditionally, the firm has been a very lender-side firm. But DLA has grown so much around the world with corporate that we also need to grow the non-bank side of the practice.’

He adds: ‘This firm is not doing cookie-cutter deals; this firm is sitting there with blank sheets of paper changing the market. That is a result of Martin’s drive and vision to look for what is coming, not what happened in the past.’

While Bartlam does not officially take on the role until 1 May, he has prioritised using technology and developing fintech clients. He says an example of this is DLA’s collaboration with RBS on a warehouse financing and risk management tool, which senior associate Marcus Lovatt also assisted on. Bartlam says: ‘It is about how to use technology in this environment. We need to work with banks on their digital agendas.’

‘It is about how to use technology in this environment. We need to work with banks on their digital agendas.’
Martin Bartlam, DLA Piper

Recent years have seen DLA lose spots on two major panels, Lloyds and Barclays, although Bartlam insists the firm still does substantial work for Lloyds despite being off its core panel.

The loss of some of this work may be double-edged. Barclays had been one of DLA’s largest UK clients, though much of the work handled for it regionally was undertaken on thin margins. Bartlam says: ‘We will constantly invest in the relationships, but to do jobs which are not achieving anything doesn’t make sense.’

The firm was not asked to pitch for the latest Barclays review after a negligence issue was raised but not proved. DLA indicates it hopes to pitch again in the next review.

Day adds: ‘Historically Barclays had been a big contributor to revenue, but that has reduced significantly because they were doing more capital markets-type funding done by US firms, so there had been a natural tail-off.’

Bartlam’s other focus is to get his team to collaborate more, introducing a platform dubbed ‘Project Connect’ specifically for finance partners which will be recognised in the firmwide remuneration process, as well as bringing on Allen to be part of that drive and also focus on clients.

Allen says his role will be primarily about mining existing relationships for more substantive work. ‘I suspect there are very few clients that DLA has not acted for at some point. With a lot of firms, you find that you develop a client relationship in one office, or one practice group within an office, and it gets stuck there.’

‘What I am doing is working across offices, bringing people together to work on client relationships. I am here to facilitate.’

If DLA faces a challenge to move up the value chain with key finance clients, in Bartlam it has a new head who garners strong reviews internally and among peers. As for the UK leadership change, one former partner observes: ‘Politically it is helpful to have one of the regional senior partners involved in management and Sarah Day – she knows the market inside out.’

victoria.young@legalease.co.uk

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk