International firm Ashurst and Magic Circle trio Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Linklaters are advising the UK’s biggest banks over an inquiry into competition in the banking sector, following an investigation launched by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in mid-July.
Trainee retention rate at Linklaters up to 93%
Linklaters has kept on 93% of qualifying trainees in its latest cohort, up on the 86% spring 2014 retention rate.
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CC edges ahead in growth as Linklaters and Freshfields unveil financial results
Clifford Chance has emerged as the strongest-performing Magic Circle firm financially for 2013/14, as the UK elite all unveiled unaudited sterling figures to coincide with the launch of the Global 100 this month. Continue reading “CC edges ahead in growth as Linklaters and Freshfields unveil financial results”
Clifford Chance eclipses UK elite as Global 100 unveiled
Magic Circle firm posts 16% PEP hike against 7% revenue increase
Clifford Chance has emerged as the strongest-performing Magic Circle firm financially for 2013/14, as the UK elite all unveiled unaudited sterling figures to coincide with the launch of the Global 100 this month.
The 3,000-lawyer firm has revealed a 7% rise in revenues to £1.36bn, up from £1.27bn in 2013. Profit per equity partner (PEP) has increased significantly to push average partner drawings back to over £1m after a blip last year, up a trend-busting 16% to £1.14m from £983,000.
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City firms support diversity targets by committing to female partnership ratio
With private practice diversity statistics still often trailing their clients, last month saw rhetoric translated into targets at Ashurst and Linklaters, as they became the latest City law firms to commit to a female partnership ratio.
Linklaters is the third Magic Circle firm, after Allen & Overy (A&O) and Clifford Chance, to set itself targets, declaring that 30% of all partner promotions will be women by 2018, while its female management roles will double within the same time frame.
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Slaughters, A&O and Linklaters announce associate pay increases
Trainees, NQs and PQEs to receive salary boost.
Setting the bar for trainee, newly-qualified (NQ) and associate pay last month were early Magic Circle movers Slaughter and May, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Linklaters, as Ashurst, Hogan Lovells and Shearman & Sterling were among other firms to announce changes.
Linklaters’ decision to increase pay pushes it ahead of the Magic Circle pack, with first-year trainees’ pay up by £500 to £40,000, and NQ salaries by £1,000 to £65,000. One-year post-qualified experience (PQE) associates also took home an extra £1,000 to £70,500, while two and three-years PQE saw more substantial increases, up by £3,750 and £4,500 to £82,000 and £93,500 respectively. These increases are significantly higher than last year, when pay rose by £2,250 and £1,000 respectively for two and three-year PQE associates.
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OC joins Magic Circle on Dixons Carphone tie-up
Carphone Warehouse and Dixons merge along with DEMB and Mondelez
Major M&A mandates have over the past month seen Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Osborne Clarke (OC) secure roles on the £3.6bn merger of Carphone Warehouse and Dixons Retail, as Clifford Chance (CC) and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom led on the $7bn merger of the coffee businesses of Kraft Foods spin-off Mondelēz International and DE Master Blenders 1753 (DEMB).
UK top-40 firm OC capitalised on its longstanding relationship with Carphone Warehouse to secure a role on its May merger with Dixons, which also owns Currys and PC World. Corporate partner Jonathan King led for OC and told Legal Business: ‘Any merger of this size is complicated when you’re dealing with two FTSE 250 companies coming together.’
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Comment: Whose money making machine? Not all law firms will be richer in a bank-lite world
Cov-lite, cov-loose and even now cov-lame – in some pockets of the finance market we are back to the boom days. All we need is a couple of headstrong private equity partners to quit Linklaters for a more sponsor-facing platform and we’ll be right back to 2006. On second thoughts… Continue reading “Comment: Whose money making machine? Not all law firms will be richer in a bank-lite world”
Back in the machine – opportunity and threats amid much-changed debt markets
After years in the post-Lehman doldrums, the finance markets are springing back to life. Legal Business assesses the forces powering the upgraded ‘Doomsday machine’
‘Having gathered 100 different [sub-prime-backed bonds], they persuaded the ratings agencies that these weren’t, as they might appear, all exactly the same things. They were another diversified portfolio of assets! This was absurd. The 100 different buildings occupied the same flood plain; in the event of a flood, the ground floors of all of them were equally exposed… The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street, it was a machine that turned lead into gold.’
Michael Lewis, The Big Short
Continue reading “Back in the machine – opportunity and threats amid much-changed debt markets”
Whose money making machine? Not all law firms will be richer in a bank-lite world
Cov-lite, cov-loose and even now cov-lame – in some pockets of the finance market we are back to the boom days. All we need is a couple of headstrong private equity partners to quit Linklaters for a more sponsor-facing platform and we’ll be right back to 2006. On second thoughts…
As our cover feature this month makes clear, the debt markets are going through not only a substantive revival but the non-investment sector is rapidly being dragged towards a US-style dynamic. This means European borrowers increasingly tapping capital markets and the role of banks reducing amid competition from other debt providers. The related vogue for upper mid-market and larger buyouts to be backed by high-yield bonds and US loans has obvious implications for City advisers since it tilts the playing field heavily in favour of New York law and US advisers.
Continue reading “Whose money making machine? Not all law firms will be richer in a bank-lite world”