The latest deal to grip the Italian market has gifted US firms Davis Polk & Wardwell and Sullivan & Cromwell key roles on a $4bn (£2.39bn) bond issue and a medium-term note programme for up to e10bn (£6.98bn). Telecom Italia has brought in favoured US adviser Davis Polk to work with Gianni Origoni Grippo’s Antonio […]
Joe Flom, the sole surviving name partner at Skadden, has more experience than… well, anyone really. Joe Flom looks almost offended when I ask him if he is 80. “I’ll be 80 in the summer,” the septuagenarian quickly corrects me in his soft Brooklyn accent. While insulting the person you are interviewing is probably not […]
Lovells acted for the Guardian Media Group on its acquisition of the management shareholding in Trader Media Group. As the publisher of Auto Trader magazine, Trader Media Group was formed in a joint venture between Guardian Media and private equity house BC Partners in 2000. The deal values Trader Media Group at £1.14bn. Dickson Minto […]
Has the creation of M-Law signalled a sea change in the provision of legal services? asks Matt Byrne Carlton and Granada’s merger stole the media market headlines last week – no doubt Lovells and Slaughter and May are already mentally spending the fees. But at the other end of the money scale there are equally […]
Lovells has scooped its first acquisition finance mandate for Société Générale (SocGen) since the bank put together its global panel earlier this year. SocGen, with Fortis Bank and ING Bank, provided senior facilities of e198m (£118.3m) and e30m (£17.9m) of mezzanine funding for 3i’s secondary buyout of Dutch soft drinks company Refresco. 3i bought e240m […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is involved in the increasingly complex battle for control of Midlands Electricity after Dundas & Wilson client Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) backed out of a billion-pound takeover. It is understood that Freshfields is acting for E.ON-owned Powergen in its attempt to buy Midlands for £1.2bn after a group of bondholders owed £600m, […]
Norton Rose has underlined its position in the mid-level acquisition finance market by snaring its second deal for NIB Capital Bank in the space of a year. The firm acted for NIB as the debt provider in the e145m (£103m) leveraged recapitalisation of Dutch packaging company Schoeller Wavin Systems, which also saw the transactional debut […]
Brussels set to crack down on price-fixing in Europe; MDP bans to be scrutinised The European Commission is launching a high-level inquiry into anticompetitive behaviour in law firms.Competition Commissioner Mario Monti is examining whether rules set by every legal regulator in Europe encourage anticompetitive behaviour that is against the public interest. A public hearing to […]
Eversheds is in talks with at least two firms from Denton Wilde Sapte’s collapsed European network, The Lawyer can reveal. Head of international at Eversheds Alan Jenkins is leading talks with Dentons’ former Spanish member Denton Lupicinio, which in turn has introduced the UK firm to former Austrian member Baier Lambert. It is understood that […]
Linklaters is stepping up its drive to outstrip the income of magic circle rivals with plans to increase profitability by nearly 40 per cent in the next two years. Sources have informed The Lawyer that Linklaters’ management is expecting top of equity to reach £1.25m and bottom of lockstep to grow to £500,000 by 2005, […]
The Law Society is planning to launch its second investigation into Allen & Overy (A&O), this time on the back of a successful victimisation claim made against the firm by project manager Shazia Wahab. A string of other discrimination claims brought by Wahab were dismissed by the London Central Employment Tribunal on 23 September. However, […]
Vinson & Elkins has ditched its London-led finance practice to concentrate purely on work from the US.The Houston, Texas-based firm has parted company with London-based finance partner Peter Gaines, signalling the end of the road for the practice area. Gaines joined Vinson & Elkins in 2001 from Baker & McKenzie. Prior to that, the US-qualified […]