SJ Berwin bolsters depleted funds team with four partner promotions
SJ Berwin has made up four funds partners to plug the gap left following the exit of partners Nigel van Zyl and Oliver Rochman to Proskauer Rose.
Rob Day
Associates Shawn D’Aguiar, Ed Hall, Cindy Valentine and Laura Charkin all enter the partnership today following off-season internal promotions voted in on Friday (23 September).
Funds partners van Zyl and Rochman resigned in July to join Proskauer, the City firm’s former merger suitor, as first revealed by The Lawyer (27 July 2011).
The departures were followed by the exit of six funds associates to the US firm earlier this month (5 September 2011). None of today’s new partners had been heading for Proskauer.
SJ Berwin managing partner Rob Day said: “We’ll look to hire laterally if good opportunities present themselves. But our approach has always been one around internal talent.”
D’Aguiar focuses on private equity funds and emerging markets, especially India and China, while Hall specialises in private equity funds and some infrastructure funds.
Valentine’s focus is secondary transactions and funds activity in Africa. She has advised HgCapital, one of van Zyl’s main clients. Charkin is in the tax team and specialises in private fund structuring.
This is not the first time that SJ Berwin made up partners outside its normal promotions round. In November 2009 it promoted Vanessa Therrode and handed her responsibility for its structured finance practice following the departure of partner Brain Carne (16 November 2009).
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Readers' comments (37)
Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 12:02 pm
So SJB have handed the future of their flagship department to a lawyer qualified in 2006. Interesting
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Danno | 26-Sep-2011 1:34 pm
You'll never win anything with kids...
...but can you run a funds team with them?
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US Funds | 26-Sep-2011 1:36 pm
Having worked with Ed Hall on a few US funds, he really is the new talent SJB need to drive the practice. Congratulations!
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Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 2:37 pm
They seem to have trained a lot of the quality funds lawyers around, so it's not surprising they promote internally.
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Anon | 26-Sep-2011 3:09 pm
I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but this is a joke.
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Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 3:09 pm
Shawn D'Aguiar has the biggest following and has a great future ahead of him.
Well done Shawn!
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Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 3:50 pm
Fantastic news - Having worked with Ed and Shawn I can safely say that they are great lawyers and will almost definitely be a success.
Congratulations!
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Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 4:09 pm
Have SJB attempted to flood this page with supportive comments in an attempt to cover up the fact that they have just promoted a bunch of 4/5 year pqe lawyers to partnership?
However good they may be, and I'm sure they are good, there was a reason they were not partners last week, and a reason why they would not (in normal circumstances) have been made partners in May 2012.
Let's hope for SJB's sake that giving the children a partner badge each for them to play with and show their friends in the playground will be enough to fool the clients that they retain a significant London funds practice.
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Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 4:11 pm
Shawn will be a fantastic addition to the partnership - an excellent choice by the partners of SJ Berwin! Incredibly well-deserved and about time!
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Anonymous | 26-Sep-2011 4:30 pm
Dear Anonymous @4:09
They are not 'a bunch of 4/5 year qualifieds'. I'm not sure what the modern treatment for jaundice is, but I'd suggest you hop off somewhere with a big bag of it.
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