Filter This View

  • February 13, 2009 |

    Freshfields takes £740m British Land role

    Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised British Land on its £740m rights issue as the property development company moves to shore up its finances. British Land, the UK's second-largest real estate investment trust, last week sold 50% of its stake in the Meadowhall shopping centre to London & Stamford Property and reported that the value of its property portfolio had declined by more than 13% in value during the fourth quarter of 2008.The company will issue more than 340 million new shares at 225p per share.

    1 minute read

  • February 10, 2009 |

    Morgan Lewis revenues up 8.5% despite tough year

    Morgan Lewis & Bockius has posted increases in both turnover and profits for 2008, despite a slowdown in its corporate practice, reports The Am Law Daily. Gross revenue at the firm rose by 8.5% to $1.12bn (£756m) from $1.03bn (£695m) in 2007, while profits per partner increased by 1.4% to $1.45m (£979,000).While corporate work slowed, the firm's growth was buttressed by strong results in the labour and employment, energy, life sciences and drug industry practice areas.Morgan Lewis managing partner Thomas Sharbaugh said: "There is no question that this particular year, our breadth of practice areas acted as a hedge against the areas that are slower."

    1 minute read

  • February 4, 2009 |

    Fraud and white-collar crime: Time to get serious

    There is little doubt that 2008 was a difficult year for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). It began with it receiving adverse criticism over the BAE corruption investigation; and then in June, Jessica de Grazia's report detailing her review of the SFO was published, highlighting low conviction rates and unfocused investigations. Her report was published at a time when the new director, Richard Alderman, was beginning a radical overhaul of the SFO's structure. The departure of a number of senior SFO figures followed and it was reported that staff morale was at an all-time low. The year ended with the collapse of the SFO's largest and most costly prosecution to date, the pharmaceutical price-fixing case known as Operation Holbein.

    1 minute read

  • February 4, 2009 |

    Back in the game

    On 23 July the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation's general counsel, Robert Bostrom, rang Randall Guynn, head of the financial institutions group at Davis Polk & Wardwell. Davis Polk was not one of Freddie Mac's outside law firms - Covington & Burling did its regulatory and disclosure work, and Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft did its routine corporate work. But Bostrom needed an equity products specialist. Regulators, concerned about the lender's massive exposure to the US mortgage market, had demanded that it shore up its core capital. But with Freddie Mac shares trading at gutter levels, issuing billions of dollars in new equity could backfire.

    1 minute read

  • January 21, 2009 |

    Linklaters and Slaughters lead on RBS' £1.6bn Bank of China shares sell-off

    Linklaters and Slaughter and May have won lead roles on Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS's) £1.6bn sale of its stake in Bank of China. Linklaters has picked up the main role for regular client RBS, with London corporate partner Anne Drummond and Hong Kong corporate partner Betty Yap leading the team.Slaughters advised ABN Amro and Morgan Stanley on the transaction, fielding a team from its Asian practice led by Hong Kong partner Benita Yu. The transaction saw RBS launching an institutional placing of its shares, with ABN and Morgan Stanley acting as placing agents.

    1 minute read

  • January 21, 2009 |

    Nice work... if you can get it

    These are bleak times for corporate lawyers. But there is one ray of light in this storm - sovereign wealth funds. These funds, which are loosely defined as investment vehicles owned by foreign governments, have generated many headlines over the past 18 months. Their high-profile transactions range from the buyout of luxury retailer Barneys New York to multibillion-dollar investments in Wall Street banks. In 2007 alone, sovereign entities spent $92bn (£61.3bn) in publicly recorded equity transactions, according to Monitor Group.But the real moment for sovereign wealth funds is now. These powerhouse investors globally control about $2.3trn (£1.5trn), a pocketbook that exceeds both the private equity and hedge fund industries. And they could quadruple in size by the middle of the next decade, even with the global slowdown and the recent decline in oil prices, according to Morgan Stanley chief currency economist Stephen Jen. Funds in the Gulf region account for more than half of those sums.

    1 minute read

  • January 20, 2009 |

    Dealmaker of the Week: Davis Polk & Wardwell's George 'Gar' Bason

    You might call Davis Polk & Wardwell's George 'Gar' Bason the Citi lawyer who never sleeps.In recent weeks, as the extent of Citi's problems have emerged,…

    1 minute read

  • January 16, 2009 |

    Davis Polk wins deal double on Citi restructuring

    Davis Polk & Wardwell has landed two roles advising Citi on its business redistribution and its joint venture with Morgan Stanley. The US giant is advising Citi with a team from its New York office, including corporate chief George Bason, corporate partners Louis Goldberg and Marc Williams, tax partners Avishai Shachar and Neil Barr and financial institutions cheif Randall Guynn.

    1 minute read

  • January 15, 2009 |

    Links, Slaughters lead on £1.6bn RBS sell-off

    Linklaters and Slaughter and May have won lead roles on Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS's) £1.6bn sale of its stake in Bank of China.Linklaters has picked up the main role for regular client RBS on the transaction, with London corporate partner Anne Drummond and Hong Kong corporate partner Betty Yap leading the team for the firm.Slaughters advised ABN Amro and Morgan Stanley on the transaction, fielding a team from its Asian practice led by Hong Kong corporate partner Benita Yu.

    1 minute read

  • January 14, 2009 |

    Predicting the unpredictable

    As the financial downturn grew in intensity through 2008, a number of high-profile general counsel took proactive steps in response. ITV general counsel Andrew Garard, for example, banished the billable hour on completion of his panel review in November, and James Blendis, legal chief of T-Mobile, entered into a round of frank discussions with the company's legal advisers in a bid to drive down costs.Earlier in the year, Tyco's much-heralded contract with Eversheds, which ushered in detailed billing transparency and widespread use of fixed fees, attracted much attention as evidence of clients taking control of legal services procurement.But not all the in-house changes were positive - the continued loss of jobs in the banking sector led to widely reported losses in the legal teams at Barclays Capital and Nomura, with the cuts spreading to media companies including Channel 4.

    1 minute read