Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, that mouthful of a Russian law firm, landed its first high-profile mega-deal last week, sparking all sorts of identity crises within the firm.
The Lawyer reported on the $30bn (£16.16bn) aluminum merger that would make the world’s largest roll of kitchen foil, but the journalist responsible was then surprised to get a call from Egorov’s PR asking us not to shorten the firm’s name to Egorov, but rather use EPA&P. Apparently it makes more sense in Russian. Tulkinghorn can only assume Egorov translates to something akin to Smith.
So our hack obliged, not wanting to get offside of the Russians following that 1997 incident in a Moscow vodka bar we’ll never mention again.
But the scribe was even more surprised to get a phone call from the same PR the next morning, sounding more than a little flustered, asking if we could now please in future refer to the firm as Egorov and not EPA&P.
“[Chairman Dimitry] Afanasiev woke up this morning and has had a change of mind overnight,” she explained. “Oh boy, now we have to do a whole rebranding exercise.”
Tulkinghorn hopes this helps.