Simmons nets Lovells corporate rising star

As part of its strategic focus on equity capital markets (ECM), Simmons & Simmons has scored one of Lovells' up-and-coming corporate partners.

Chris Horton has particular experience in cross-border ECM work for investment banks and also spent two years in-house with the ECM team at JPMorgan. Horton was made up to partner at Lovells earlier this year. He was a salaried partner at Lovells, but it is understood that he will join the equity at Simmons.

Simmons London head of corporate Mark Curtis told The Lawyer: "This is a very exciting hire for us. Chris is a great guy and we're looking to build up our ECM team."

Together with private equity, ECM is one area of focus for the corporate department, which last year contributed 37 per cent to the firm's £250.4m turnover.