Richards Butler has advised its longstanding client MTV on a major deal that sees the music television company relaunch in Italy. The firm was instructed by Svenja Geissmar, general counsel and senior vice-president of corporate business affairs, and Kathryn David, of the corporate business affairs department of MTV Networks Europe, to sell MTV’s Italian operations […]
Lovells’ highly-rated corporate finance partner Allan Murray-Jones is joining the London office of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom to spearhead a move into private equity. Murray-Jones, who resigned from Lovells at the start of the year, will join Skadden Arps in September to launch a European assault on the buyouts market. Until now, the […]
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has made its first post-merger lateral partner hire with an appointment to its property department. Lesley-Anne Avis joins later this month from Rowe & Maw, where she is a fixed-share partner. She specialises in property development and local authority-related work and has worked on PFI transactions. Avis has been at Rowe […]
Osborne Clarke is launching an attack on the London property market by merging with niche West End property firm McGuinness Finch. Four property partners, two planning partners and one property litigation partner will join Osborne Clarke on 1 June, following several months of discussions. The team also includes five assistants. Founded in 1985, McGuinness earned […]
Scotland-based firm McGrigor Donald has appointed Professor Alan Miller as human rights director. Miller has been a barrister for the past 20 years and was last year’s president of the Glasgow Bar Association. Miller says: “The opening at McGrigor Donald was very attractive. It will enable me to be involved in setting standards of best […]
Franco-US firm Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn is expanding its New York intellectual property (IP) practice with a team from Pryor Cashman Sherman & Flynn. The group is led by partner Jeffrey Laytin and includes two of counsel – Mitchell Stein and Richard Verner. This is the latest move in the international expansion of Salans’ IP/IT […]
Proposals by two Bar Council committees to ban discrimination against pupil and tenant applicants on grounds of age have been slammed as “unworkable” by the Commercial Bar Association (Combar). The proposal, included in a report by the bar’s professional standards and equal opportunities committees, says that anecdotal evidence shows that a substantial number of chambers […]
Pittsburgh firm Buchanan Ingersoll is taking on a partner from Denton Wilde Sapte to spearhead a move into insurance work. Steven Blair, who joined Denton Hall (now Denton Wilde Sapte) in 1998 as a partner, will be the first insurance partner in the US firm’s London office. Blair has acted for a raft of international […]
Silicon Valley giant Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is expanding its fund services group with a former general counsel from the Bank of America. The group, which concentrates on forming and servicing venture capital and private equity funds, has taken on Robert Fore as part of a plan to move into acting for buyout funds. […]
The London office of Weil Gotshal & Manges has advised Nikko Principal Investments in connection with the first ever securitisation of European port revenues. The securitisation raised £305m, which was used to refinance Nikko’s acquisition of the ports of Tees and Hartlepool in the North East. The firm won the work in a pitch against […]
KLegal corporate partner Patrick Martin boasts private equity fund Merlin as one of his biggest clients, and it has moved with him from Pinsent Curtis to Price Waterhouse’s law firm Arnheim & Co, and from there to KLegal. Merlin became one of the founding investors in Bath-based drug delivery company Vectura in 1997, and Martin […]
This was a complicated deal for Allen & Overy‘s (A&O) long-term client Smiths Group which follows its £4.5bn merger last year with TI Group. At the time of that deal Smiths did not want the Automotive Systems Division of TI Group to be part of the merger, and TI Group was already trying to sell […]