Filter This View

  • March 10, 2014 |

    Ashurst holds first partner remuneration review since financial integration with Blakes

    Ashurst is set to complete its first partner remuneration review since its full financial merger with Australia's Blake Dawson Partners at Blakes transferred over to Ashurst's managed lockstep system in November last year, a move which had been one of the conditions in the firms' merger deed.

    1 minute read

  • March 10, 2014 |

    Hong Kong gives higher rights of audience to four more lawyers

    Four additional Hong Kong lawyers have been given the go-ahead to appear in the city's courts following training and assessment, out of a total of 30 who took part in the scheme. The lawyers were named in a Law Society circular, and inlcude Allen & Overy (A&O) senior associate Kevin Kee, Ernst and Young in house attorney Regina Fan, partner Pak Hau from Hong Kong outfit Charles Chu & Kenneth Sit and sole proprietor Paul Kwong.

    1 minute read

  • March 6, 2014 |

    Greenberg Traurig and Ashurst lead on £250m Rentokil subsidiary sale

    Greenberg Traurig Maher (GTM) and Ashurst have taken the lead roles on the sale of pest control giant Rentokil's sale of its facilities management business to Interserve for £250m. The deal, which is subject to shareholder approval, Interserve acquire Rentokil subsidiary Initial Facilities via a bank facility and share placement.

    1 minute read

  • March 6, 2014 |

    Hogan Lovells' Birmingham base shows near-shoring trend is gathering pace

    On the face of things, it's easy to lump all of the latest law firm near-shoring ventures together, putting Hogan Lovells' planned Birmingham launch alongside previous moves by Allen & Overy (A&O) and Herbert Smith Freehills into Belfast, and Ashurst into Glasgow. But there are clear differences in how firms use these low-cost bases. And, in contrast to Ashurst and A&O, where the overwhelming majority of the roles are business services, Hogan Lovells' move is focusing squarely on legal positions. Inevitable perhaps, given it announced plans last month to launch a business services centre in Johannesburg, following its merger with South African firm Routledge Modise in December.

    1 minute read

  • March 4, 2014 |

    Ashurst private equity partner rejoins Stephen Lloyd at A&O

    Allen & Overy has bagged its second private equity partner from Ashurst in the past six months with the hire of Karan Dinamani. Dinamani is following in the footsteps of Ashurst's former head of corporate Stephen Lloyd, who joined the magic circle firm's corporate group as co-head of its private equity practice after resigning in November.

    1 minute read

  • March 3, 2014 |

    Pinsent Masons to address gender imbalance with 30% female partner target

    Pinsent Masons has launched a suite of initiatives aimed at increasing its number of female partners to 30%, with an initial target of 25% set for May 2018. 'Project Sky', which is being led by employment partner Linda Jones, seeks to remove any barriers to the progression of women to partnership and senior leadership.

    1 minute read

  • February 27, 2014 |

    King of the market: advisers prepare for listing frenzy as confidence returns

    If further proof were needed of the resurgence of global initial public offering (IPO) activity, the last few weeks have delivered it. In London, plans to list announced by Pets at Home and Poundland come as other retailers such as House of Fraser and Fat Face are expected to float later in the year. The last nine months have seen a major upsurge in IPO activity across the world. In London, there were 30 main market IPOs in 2013 with a total value of £7.7bn, compared with 18 in 2012 valued at £1.9bn.

    1 minute read

  • February 27, 2014 |

    Two sides of the coin – can Travers and Macfarlanes still be classed as City bellwethers?

    With their UK-centric business models and focus on private equity, if anyone was going to be hit hard by Lehman Brothers' 2008 collapse and the subsequent implosion of the global financial markets, it was top 50 UK law firms Macfarlanes and Travers Smith. Traditionally paired together as tight and conservative partnerships with a heavy transactional bent and a distinct absence of international networks, some rivals predicted the two would struggle to quickly regain the form that – pre-crisis – had set them apart from many of their mid-market peers. As Macfarlanes senior partner Charles Martin puts it: "Before the downturn the firm was more heavily transactional: private equity, corporate and real estate. All of this stopped in its tracks in 2008 – it was as though we were hit by a freight train in the night." In fact, while profits per equity partner (PEP) fell by more than 30% at both firms in the first chaotic financial year post-Lehman between 2007-08 and 2008-09, the pair's fortunes subsequently recovered well. Travers saw revenues soar by 11.6% in 2009-10 against a 53.5% rise in PEP, with that year's bumper growth helping to ensure that profits in 2012-13 were 5% higher than five years earlier. And while Macfarlanes has yet to regain its boom-time PEP high of £1.1m, at just shy of £990,000 for the last financial year it has come pretty close in far less buoyant market conditions.

    1 minute read

  • February 24, 2014 |

    Bird & Bird enters Korea via partnership with local firm

    Bird & Bird has become the latest international law firm to enter Korea after signing a cooperation agreement with Seoul-based outfit Hwang Mok Park (HMP). The non-exclusive partnership will allow the two firms to participate in joint marketing and collaboration of client services, with a view to a more formal merger in the next two to three years.

    1 minute read

  • February 20, 2014 |

    Irwin Mitchell eyes bright corporate future as firm aims to put Google hiccup behind it

    "So I imagine you'll want to talk about Google, the Manchester team that left for TLT and the firm's corporate profile," suggests the head of Irwin Mitchell's business legal services (BLS) division, Niall Baker, on sitting down with Legal Week recently. "One of the first skills good lawyers learn is how to read upside down," he adds after a brief pause, nodding at the top three lines of my notepad. There's a smile creeping across his face, which is wrapped in a month-old beard, grown – so Baker says – to annoy his boss, the firm's group chief executive, John Pickering. It's a decent ice-breaker but an acknowledgement of a rather sensitive issue for Irwin Mitchell. A week before our conversation last month, the firm was identified as having been de-listed by Google, apparently for falling foul of search engine optimisation rules in its links to personal injury-related stories.

    1 minute read