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  • October 21, 2013 |

    Ashurst, Freshfields, CC grab roles on Merlin Entertainments' £4bn flotation

    Ashurst, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett have landed roles on the £4bn IPO of Merlin Entertainments Group. Merlin – which owns Madame Tussauds, Alton Towers and the Legoland theme parks - is controlled by Danish investment company Kirkbi and private equity houses CVC and Blackstone. Merlin's investors will sell some of their stakes but remain shareholders.

    1 minute read

  • October 16, 2013 |

    Simpson and Kirkland land top roles on $1bn Melrose-KKR deal

    Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Kirkland & Ellis have taken the lead roles on Melrose Industries' $1bn (£627m) sale of construction manufacturing assets Crosby and Acco to private equity house Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR). Simpson Thacher acted for Melrose, leaving longstanding client KKR to turn to Kirkland on the deal. Both Crosby, an Oklahoma-based manufacturer of rigging and lifting equipment, and Acco, a smaller Pennsylvania producer of custom-built material handling equipment, were originally acquired as part of Melrose's 2008 buyout of engineering group FKI.

    1 minute read

  • October 11, 2013 |

    JPMorgan puts quarterly loss down to $9.2bn legal bill

    JPMorgan Chase has blamed its $400m quarterly loss on $9.2bn legal costs, "saying a strong underlying performance" had been "marred by large legal expense". The results, which were announced today (11 October), are the first time the bank has posted a quarterly loss in more than eight years.

    1 minute read

  • October 10, 2013 |

    Davis Polk and Simpson Thacher land roles on $125m US listing for Chinese internet giant

    US pair Davis Polk & Wardwell and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett have scored mandates on the planned New York listing of Chinese internet company Baidu's online travel unit. The listing of Qunar Cayman Islands, valued at $125m (£78m), comes as China's big four internet companies compete with each other to grow their businesses abroad. The initial public offering (IPO) is thought to be the largest by a Chinese company in the US for two years. Davis Polk won the role of issuers' counsel, fielding a team led by Beijing-based capital markets partner Li He.

    1 minute read

  • October 9, 2013 |

    CC private equity partner re-joins David Walker at Latham

    Latham & Watkins has raided Clifford Chance's (CC) private equity practice for the second time this year with the hire of Tom Evans as partner. Evans joins just months after CC private equity chief and key Carlyle relationship partner David Walker made the switch.

    1 minute read

  • October 3, 2013 |

    M&A confidence grows as mega deals fuel rise in global activity

    Lawyers are buoyed by growing boardroom confidence following a pick-up in global M&A activity during the last quarter, dominated by the rise of mega deals. The $130bn (£80.1bn) Vodafone-Verizon deal, which marked the largest US-based corporate deal on record since 2001, is largely responsible for making September the top month by deal values this year so far, pushing many of the law firms to take roles on the deal into the top 10 global advisers of the quarter by value, according to data from Mergermarket. The value of global M&A for Q1-3 this year totals $1,606.7bn (£989bn), a 5.5% increase on the same period in 2012, with 2013 on track to see the highest total since 2008. The recent stabilisation of the European economy is also reflected in M&A activity, with a 41.5% rise in deal values from Q3 2012 to Q3 2013.

    1 minute read

  • October 2, 2013 |

    Verizon advisers dominate as global deals show resurgence in Q3

    Advisers on the $130bn Vodafone-Verizon deal dominate the deal rankings for the third quarter of 2013, as global M&A values rise on the back of a spate of mega-mergers. Davis Polk & Wardwell, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett take the top three slots in Mergermarket's quarterly rankings of global deal advisers by value after landing roles on the combination, one of the largest in corporate history.

    1 minute read

  • October 1, 2013 |

    Simpson Thacher and Nishimura & Asahi on board for KKR healthcare acquisition

    Simpson Thacher & Barlett and Japanese firm Nishimura & Asahi have won leading roles on private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts & Co's acquisition of Panasonic Healthcare Co of Japan.

    1 minute read

  • September 26, 2013 |

    Simpson takes lead role as Alibaba looks to list in US

    Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has scored the lead role on Alibaba's US IPO following a decision by the world's largest online e-commerce company not to list in Hong Kong. Hangzhou-based Alibaba, whose plans for a Hong Kong IPO emerged earlier this year, is now expected to list in New York, which would allow the company founders to retain control over board nominations.

    1 minute read

  • September 25, 2013 |

    Dentons heads to Houston as it beefs up oil and gas network

    Dentons is to open its 79th global office in Houston, becoming the latest firm to add a local presence in the home of the US oil and gas industry.

    1 minute read