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  • 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

  • February 4, 2009 |

    Elite trio lead on $666m drinks company sell-off

    Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May and Mayer Brown have taken lead roles on the $666.5m (£458m) sale of Anheuser-Busch InBev's 20% stake in China's Tsingtao Brewery to Japan's Asahi Breweries.ABInBev, the world's largest brewer, will retain a 7% stake in Tsingtao, the second-largest brewer in China. The deal, which was announced on 23 January, follows InBev's $52bn (£35.7bn) acquisition of Anheuser-Busch last year. The Freshfields team representing ABInBev was led by Robert Ashworth, Freshfields' Hong Kong-based Asia corporate head, and China managing partner Teresa Ko, who is also based in Hong Kong.

    1 minute read

  • February 4, 2009 |

    Travers strikes up LPC deal with BPP

    Travers Smith has agreed a deal that will see BPP become the exclusive provider of the Legal Practice Course (LPC) for its trainees. Travers Smith trainees will study at BPP's Holborn law school in central London from September 2009, with the firm able to tailor the course to give its students the chance to learn about its key clients and practice areas.Travers Smith graduate recruitment partner Tom Purton said: "This will allow us to have much greater input into the development of our trainees during the LPC year and to align our trainees' experience on the LPC with the training provided by the firm."

    1 minute read

  • February 3, 2009 |

    Freshfields named official firm for London 2012

    Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has landed a trophy role as the official law firm for the 2012 London Olympics. The firm won the role after a tender process carried out towards the end of last year by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).London management group chair Tim Jones will oversee the project, that will see five lawyers initially sent on secondment to LOCOG to carry out a range of work from procurement and property to employment and competition. The firm will provide these services for free as part of the sponsorship agreement.

    1 minute read

  • January 29, 2009 |

    City lawyers braced for widespread partner cuts

    City partners are preparing for a gruesome year, with half of all partners believing that firms are carrying too much deadwood at senior level and 97% expecting to see partnerships downsized. In the wake of Addleshaw Goddard announcing that it is to cut around 10% of its partnership (see page 13), the latest Legal Week Big Question survey found that almost three out of five partners (58%) believe most major law firms are carrying too many underperforming partners.With partnership cutbacks also last week emerging at both Ashurst and Linklaters, most of the 166 respondents expect to see similar restructurings at other leading firms. Only 3% believed the Addleshaws cuts were a one-off, with the remaining 97% all predicting similar moves to follow.

    1 minute read

  • January 28, 2009 |

    Dealmaker: Charles Randell

    Slaughters' Charles Randell on naval dreams, moral dilemmas and keeping sight of the big picture

    1 minute read

  • January 22, 2009 |

    Magic circle trio take lead roles on Government banking rescue plan

    A trio of top City firms has landed advisory roles as the Government this week (19 January) unveiled a second package of measures to help bail out the UK banking system. Slaughter and May, Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have all won roles on the new plan to stimulate lending, which come three months after the previous £37bn bailout was announced.

    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 |

    Commentary: Looking back to 2008 says deal year will feel like 2003

    There is scant evidence of new year cheer for deal lawyers surveying the year ahead, even though figures from Legal Week's exclusive data provider Mergermarket illustrate that deal activity has fallen less than the business headlines of late would suggest.The broad picture for M&A in 2008 was clear: despite the credit squeeze paralysing activity from private equity bidders, overall M&A held up well in the first half of the year. This picture of resilience, however, did not survive the chaos unleashed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. So while the total number of announced bids in Europe exceeded 1,500 in both the first and second quarter of 2008, by the fourth quarter, that number had dwindled to 786, according to Mergermarket. Overall that leaves 2008 roughly on par with a solid year like 2005. But expectations that the conditions we have seen in the fourth quarter will be repeated through the coming year suggests that M&A activity in 2009 in major regions will be in line with the deal drought of 2002 and 2003.

    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