• August 20, 2012 |

    Slaughters lines up with Danish firms to advise on latest ISS bid

    Slaughter and May has lined up alongside a raft of Danish firms on a €500m (£390m) deal that saw Lego billionaire Kirk Kristiansen team up with a pension fund to secure a stake in Danish facilities giant ISS. Slaughters took a role advising ISS and majority shareholders GS Capital Partners and EQT Partners as Canadian pension fund Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) and Kirkbi Invest - a holding company that invests on behalf of the family behind Lego - took a 26% stake in the company.

    1 minute read

  • August 3, 2012 |

    Herbert Smith and Links act on $2bn Rosneft-Eni oil exploration deal

    Herbert Smith and Linklaters have advised on a $2bn (£1.3bn) oil exploration financing agreement between Russian oil giant Rosneft and Italian energy company Eni. Herbert Smith led for Eni with a team including Moscow corporate partner Danila Logofet and finance partner Ed Baring, while Linklaters acted for Rosneft with Moscow corporate partner Grigory Gadzhiev and Moscow managing partner Matthew Keats in the lead.

    1 minute read

  • July 17, 2012 |

    US quartet score roles on GSK's $3bn biotech takeover

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz are among a host of US firms to take lead roles on GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) $2.8bn (£1.8bn) acquisition of Human Genome Sciences (HGS), ending a three-month hostile pursuit of the biotech company after bettering its offer.

    1 minute read

  • July 10, 2012 |

    Linklaters joins four-firm line-up for US role on $4.5bn WellPoint acquisition

    Linklaters' New York corporate team has picked up a lead role for WellPoint on its $4.5bn (£2.9bn) acquisition of healthcare rival Amerigroup. The magic circle firm fielded a US team led by corporate partner Dan Dufner for WellPoint - the second-largest health insurer in the US. He worked alongside US head of employment Bindu Culas, competition partner Jeff Schmidt, co-head of US banking Jeff Norton and tax partner Gordon Warnke.

    1 minute read

  • July 5, 2012 |

    Skadden takes lead legal role on News Corp plan to split business

    Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom has secured the lead role for News Corporation in the US on its plans to split the $60bn (£48bn) media business into two publicly traded companies.

    1 minute read

  • July 5, 2012 |

    CC corporate revival continues as firm secures top M&A rankings

    Clifford Chance (CC) has overcome the continued slowdown in the M&A markets to dominate Mergermarket's global, European and UK rankings by value for the first half of 2012.

    1 minute read

  • July 3, 2012 |

    Yahoo general counsel quits search giant

    Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan is stepping down "to move on to new opportunities," according to a resignation letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, reports The Recorder. Ron Bell, deputy GC for products and the Americas region, is serving as interim general counsel, according to an internal memo from CEO Ross Levinsohn.

    1 minute read

  • July 2, 2012 |

    Freshfields joins New York trio on AB InBev's $20bn Modelo acquisition

    Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Sullivan & Cromwell, Cravath Swaine & Moore and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have all landed roles on Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev's $20bn (£12.8bn) acquisition of the Mexican brewer behind brands including Corona, Grupo Modelo. The deal sees AB InBev, which already owned a stake of around 50% in Grupo Modelo, buy up the remaining shares to take control of the company.

    1 minute read

  • June 22, 2012 |

    Finley Kumble's children – the familiar cycle of legal collapses

    There have been plenty of precedents for high-profile collapses in the world's largest legal market, but one failure still looms the largest over the US profession 24 years on. After all, the rise and rapid implosion of Finley Kumble Wagner Heine Underberg Manley Myerson & Casey was in some aspects even more startling than that of Dewey & LeBoeuf. Finley was built at breakneck speed on the basis of a new model. In place of the traditional focus on the practise of law, the firm hungered for partners who would win business and expansion through continuous lateral recruitment.

    1 minute read

  • June 21, 2012 |

    Top Russian investment bank RenCap kicks off 'very competitive' adviser review

    Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital has kicked off a review of its law firm roster after group head of compliance Mark Harris took up an expanded role as head of legal earlier this year.

    1 minute read