Simmons confirms hire of five-partner BLP team

Simmons today announced that Richard Hughes, Simon Kildahl and former BLP managing partner Bob Jones will be joining John Hayward and Mark Waghorn, whose departures were revealed earlier this week (24 May 2011), at the firm. All the partners join from BLP.

According to Simmons all five are joining as partners in its banking practice, however it is understood that not all the partners have signed contracts with Simmons yet.

It is anticipated that the partners will join Simmons towards the end of the summer. Sources close to BLP said that the firm is not enforcing gardening leave and is taking a relaxed approach to restrictive covenants.

The team has experience in a range of sectors, including acquisition finance, asset finance, general corporate lending, real estate finance, structured finance and restructuring.

According to Simmons managing partner Jeremy Hoyland, the firm is not likely to make any more UK finance partner hires in the near future, although he added that the firm will be looking to hire associates.

“In terms of finance hires in the UK, we’re not planning on making any more,” he said. “But we recently made a hire in Paris and we’re still keen to build further in Europe, but these hires are a big thing for us in Europe and we want to get these guys bedded in before we do anything else.”

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