Clifford Chance merges energy and asset finance teams” />Clifford Chance has merged its energy and asset finance teams with the aim of streamlining internal administrative requirements and freeing up client-facing time, www.thelawyer.com can reveal.

The enlarged group, which still functions as separate entities for external purposes, boasts around 100 lawyers, with half coming from each side of the merger.

The group is co-headed by projects chief Andrew Grenville and head of asset finance Geoffrey White. According to Grenville, while the merger has made life easier for members of the group internally, externally there has been no change to the way lawyers deal with clients.

“This is in line with a general trend of having larger groups for reporting purposes,” he said. “That leads to a more efficient use of resource because if you have to manage small and specific groups that aren’t well linked together there can be some internal competition that distracts lawyers from where they want to be, which is facing the client.

“From an external point of view there’s not much change at all while internally we have knocked down some barriers.”

Specifically, Grenville said combining the two groups makes it easier for lawyers to share information, on due diligence for example, at short notice.

He added that, while the groups already sat next to each other in Clifford Chance’s Upper Bank Street office, there has been some desk swapping to aid the integration.