Magic circle firm Linklaters has promoted 18 to its partnership, favouring London on a regional basis and corporate on a practice group basis.

Magic circle firm Linklaters has promoted 18 to its partnership, favouring London on a regional basis and corporate on a practice group basis.

Unlike rival Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which announced its promotions at the end of March (23 March), Linklaters has favoured its headquarters in this year’s round with six of the new partners – a third – based in London. At Freshfields, just two of its 14 new partners are based in London.

Last year a quarter of Linklaters’ new partners – seven out of 28 – were based in London.

The rest of Linklaters’ promotions are spread across its international network with Brussels, Madrid and Hong Kong gaining two new partners each. The firm’s offices in New York and Tokyo have received one new partner apiece as have Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Moscow and Warsaw.

As was the case last year, the bulk of Linklaters’ promotions have been made in the corporate practice. The group has gained eight new partners. Banking has received four while capital markets, environment and planning, financial markets, investment management, private equity and real estate have each gained one.

The firm’s senior partner David Cheyne said: “Our new partners and counsel are an exceptionally talented group of people.

‘The elections and promotions, which reflect the strength and depth of expertise across the firm, highlight our commitment to strategic investment in our global practice areas to meet clients’ needs.”

In addition to the partner appointments the firm has made up 18 to the position of counsel while 29 salaried partners are to join the equity on 1 May.

This year’s new partners are:

Banking

David Ballegeer, Brussels

Ben Crosse, Madrid

Toby Grimstone, London

Danelle Le Cren, New York

Capital Markets

Andrew Vickery, London

Environment & Planning

Chris Staples, London

Financial Markets

Umesh Kumar, Hong Kong

Investment Management

Markus Wollenhaupt, Frankfurt

Mainstream Corporate

Mike Bienenfeld, London

Simon Branigan, London

Arnaud Coibion, Brussels

Tim Johannsen-Roth, Düsseldorf

Kim Latypov, Moscow

Samantha Thompson, Hong Kong

Jiro Toyokawa, Tokyo

Tomasz Zorawski, Warsaw

Private Equity

David Holdsworth, London

Real Estate

Jesus Varela, Madrid