Weil Gotshal promotes last of Lovells private equity team to partnership
Weil Gotshal & Manges has promoted London lawyers Samantha McGonigle and Simon Lyell to its London private equity partnership six years after the trophy hire of their private equity team from Hogan Lovells legacy firm Lovells.
The pair joined the New York-headquartered firm as associates in 2006, when Weil launched a fresh attack on the private equity market with the hire of Lovells partner Marco Compagnoni and senior associate Jonathan Wood (2 February 2006).
The promotions, part of a 12-strong global round, will take Weil Gotshal’s private equity capability in London to six partners, with McGonigle and Lyell sitting alongside Compagnoni, Wood, Michael Francies and Mark Soundy. The firm has also promoted structured finance associate Rupert Wall, a former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer associate, to its London partnership.
The promotions underline the growing market share of US-headquartered firms in London’s private equity and funds sphere. Last year Weil’s London office raided magic circle firm Clifford Chance for a four-partner funds team (13 June 2011), a move that followed the resignation of Clifford Chance funds chief Jason Glover, who left the firm for the London office of US firm Simpson Thacher in 2010 (20 July 2010).
Weil’s City funds team then snatched a role for private equity giant BC Partners on its $8.6bn (£5.5bn) fundraising earlier this year (23 February 2012), one of the firm’s first major funds mandates since its four-partner raid on Clifford Chance.
The latest promotions (listed below) span across the firm’s offices in America and Europe, with 12 promoted to partnership and six to counsel, all effective from January 2013.
The partner promotions in full:
- Jason Billeck, complex commercial litigation, Houston
- Garrett Fail, business finance and restructuring, New York
- Eric Hochstadt, antitrust/competition, New York
- Barbara Jagersberger, private equity, Munich
- Roman Janecek, mergers and acquisitions, Prague
- Jiri Kindl, mergers and acquisitions, Prague
- Vladimir Kykal, mergers and acquisitions, Prague
- Simon Lyell, private equity, London
- Samantha McGonigle, private equity, London
- Libor Moravek, mergers and acquisitions, Prague
- Gregory Silbert, complex commercial litigation, New York
- Rupert Wall, structured finance, London
