The former head of Kirkland & Ellis’s London office is due to retire at the end of 2018. James Learner has been at the US firm since 1987, starting out in Chicago, and in London since 2000. Besides being a corporate private equity partner, he also served on Kirkland’s 15-member global management committee. He left […]
Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison has teamed up with German firm Hengeler Mueller on the sale of Bayer’s animal health business for $7.6bn. The two firms advised the purchaser Elanco Animal Health, which sells products to support farmers and pets alike. The Paul Weiss team was led by partner Tarun Stewart and litigation partner […]
Norton Rose Fulbright and two magic circle firms have landed mandates on the acquisition of pub chain Greene King by Hong Kong’s CK Assets.
Three months after British Steel was placed into compulsory liquidation, two firms are leading on the proposed purchase of the business.
Cravath and Paul Weiss have been called in to advise on the latest US media merger between entertainment conglomerates Viacom and CBS.
Acting for UK corporates is the biggest challenge for US outfits in the City, but for the meantime, they’re not breaking out of their lucrative PE bubble. This is in spite of firms such as White & Case and Latham & Watkins going out into the market and hiring big-name magic circle stars from public […]
Following a swift exit from Goodwin at the tail-end of last year, the pair have returned to their old stomping ground; acting for management in PE deals.
There’s a shift occurring in the corporate teams of the UK’s most prominent public M&A shops. And for once, it’s got nothing to do with the US firms. Slaughter and May is to lose its golden boys of M&A – William Underhill and Nigel Boardman – at the end of this financial year, while it […]
The pre-Christmas and pre-Brexit rush has hit the City. Investors and lawyers alike are pushing through deals, trying to get projects away, and a glut of companies have been attempting to take their offerings public. The market has, in fact, seen so much activity over the last few months that it caused a bottleneck. Now, […]
Over the weekend, nearly two years of tussling for UK media giant Sky came to an end when Comcast’s £30bn bid trumped 21st Century Fox.
But while magic circle firms maintain only they can act on big-ticket M&A, the variety of advisers on call was striking. Here’s what we learned.
When Latham & Watkins turned its attention to infrastructure private equity, the firm had two choices about how to fill the gap. The first was targeting Clifford Chance, the second was recruiting out of Allen & Overy. It decided to do both. Earlier this month, Latham pulled out all the stops by announcing it was […]
The changing political environment is making life harder for the London lawyers servicing Russia’s super-rich.
The day of the corporate big beast is over. What can the magic circle do to nurture its next crop of superstars?
Go back a couple of years and you could not chuck a stone without hitting a high-profile private equity lawyer heading from one firm to another. The streets were thick with them, lured away from their firms by the promise of greener pastures. As one big-name partner says, “private equity was the poster boy for […]
By James Webb Despite 2018 being a very tough year for many in the food and drink industry, according to research compiled by Grant Thornton, M&A and private equity deal activity in the sector remained steady with a fall of just 2.8% compared to 2017. This is supported by our experience during the period where […]
By Mark Josselyn Earlier this year the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (“HRTO”) found that a corporate respondent was liable for the violations of the Ontario Human Rights Code perpetrated upon the applicant by the personal respondent in the course of his employment, relying upon the analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada in Robichaud v. […]
For decades, Germany has been one of the biggest foreign investors in the UK. While the British love to talk about their ‘special relationship’ with the United States, there is now every chance that, in a post-Brexit world, Germany will become the UK’s new priority…
By Daniel Wood The Supreme Court has handed down judgment in the high-profile case of MT Højgaard v E.ON Climate & Renewables. The Supreme Court has overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision and – in so doing – has provided useful clarification in respect of various important principles… …In this decision, the Supreme Court was willing […]
Debtors do not have to inform invoice financiers of agreed rebates according to a recent case in the Court of Appeal which upheld an earlier High Court decision. Funders will be expected to make their own enquiries; should they fail to do so, it is at their own peril. The case involved a claim by the financier (Bibby […]
