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  • September 17, 2008 |

    A&O set for Munich launch with double Shearman hire

    Allen & Overy (A&O) is to launch in Munich next month with the hire of Shearman & Sterling's Munich head Gottfried Breuninger and M&A partner Astrid Krueger. The departures will leave the US firm with only two partners in its Munich office and will heighten market speculation about Shearman's German arm, which saw its Mannheim office split away earlier this year (1 May) to set up independently as Schilling Zutt & Anschuetz.The Munich hires also mark A&O's third raid on Shearman's German practice this year as it brought in Shearman's global co-head of M&A, Hans Rolf Koerfer, and M&A partner Birgit Reese for its Duesseldorf office in January and March respectively.

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  • September 16, 2008 |

    After Lehman: from apocalypse to merger mania in three easy steps

    It’s a cliche to say that intense activity in business, even to the extent of outright turmoil, is good for commercial lawyers. But this week’s…

    1 minute read

  • September 16, 2008 |

    Lehman lawyers look for work as CC acts on Barclays asset hunt

    More than 50 UK lawyers at Lehman Brothers are searching for work in the wake of the bank's shock bankruptcy filing at the weekend. Specialist in-house recruiters are now working in and around the bank's Canary Wharf offices amid widespread expectations that Lehman's 5,000 UK staff will be made redundant.Recruiters working with Lehman lawyers said that there had been no formal notice of redundancy for the group's UK lawyers but it is expected that a UK legal team estimated at between 50-60 lawyers will lose their jobs.

    1 minute read

  • September 11, 2008 |

    Editor's Comment: Something to declare

    What does the casual reader learn glancing through Allen & Overy's (A&O's) newly-published annual report? Quite a bit. While there was some smirking when then senior partner Guy Beringer last year criticised the reliance on profits per equity partner (PEP) as the fundamental measure of industry success, the firm's report has attempted to flesh out his concept.

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  • September 10, 2008 |

    Four Seasons £1.5bn finance talks lures major City line-up

    Macfarlanes, Allen & Overy (A&O), Linklaters, Ashurst and Kirkland & Ellis have advised as the company was this month granted a repayment reprieve until the end of October, giving it time to work with lenders on restructuring its debt.The repayment was part of an agreement with the care-home chain made in 2006 when it was bought out by investment house Three Delta for £1.4bn from former owners, Allianz Capital Partners.The original deal gave Four Seasons until the end of August to refinance the debt but the company was unable to do so owing to the poor credit markets. Macfarlanes has been acting for Four Seasons throughout the negotiations, with corporate partner Ian Martin taking the lead. The top 30 firm has advised Four Seasons since 1999 and Martin advised the company's management team during its 2006 buy-out. Four Seasons has been left with 11 tranches of debt including some payment-in-kind (PIK) loans held by lenders including Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Trafalgar Asset Managers.

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  • September 10, 2008 |

    Commentary: Tax tourism means work for City firms, but at what price?

    At a time when large corporate deals are few and far between, the decision of FTSE 100 pharmaceutical company Shire to relocate to Ireland has kicked off a steady stream of work for City law firms advising other companies looking to follow suit. Given that the deals are lengthy and expensive, and require large teams of lawyers, a handful of firms, led by Slaughter and May, seem to be doing pretty well from the mandates.Since Shire's announcement in the spring, at least four other companies have followed its lead. Most recently, office space rental company Regus said it was moving its operations to Luxembourg, following closely in the wake of United Business Media (UBM), Henderson Group and engineering group Charter, which have all decided to shun the UK in recent months. Each has declared they do not want to put up with the UK regime governing the taxation of overseas profits - maintaining that it is both punitive and territorial.

    1 minute read

  • September 10, 2008 |

    Slaughters, Lovells and A&O advise on £1bn Cable & Wireless bulk annuity deal

    Slaughter and May, Lovells and Allen & Overy (A&O) have won lead advisory roles on a £1bn bulk annuity deal between Cable & Wireless and Prudential, thought to be the biggest of its kind in the UK to date. The deal saw the trustees of the Cable & Wireless Superannuation Fund agree to the £1bn buy-in of an insurance policy for its pensioner liabilities with Prudential. Lovells advised the scheme's trustees, fielding a team led by pensions partner Stephen Ito with support from business restructuring partner Joe Bannister and financial institutions partner Dominic Hill.Lovells has traditionally advised Prudential on this type of transaction but on this occasion the firm had already chosen to advise Cable & Wireless trustees as the company is also a longstanding client.Instead, Prudential turned to Slaughter and May, where pensions and employment partner Philip Bennett headed the team. He was assisted by corporate finance partner Oliver Wareham, capital markets partner Guy O'Keefe and financial regulation partner Jan Putnis.Prudential is an established client of the firm, but this is the first transaction of this kind on which Slaughters has advised.

    1 minute read

  • September 10, 2008 |

    Midlands and the North: Down but not out

    Nationally-focused firms have delivered the poorest collective performance in the UK over the past 12 months, leading to speculation over what the next year will hold for them.The 2005-06 financial year was outstanding for regional and national players, with leading outfits in Birmingham and Manchester outperforming City rivals. However, as the economy took a dive, the weakest performances in Legal Week's most recent top 50 league table were notably those with a presence in the Midlands and the north. Mills & Reeve, Hill Dickinson, Cobbetts and Beachcroft all appeared at the bottom of the profits per equity partner ranking, with the latter suffering a 3.1% drop. Meanwhile, Halliwells, Hammonds, Dickinson Dees and Shoosmiths all scored poorly on profit growth, with Shoosmiths actually experiencing a 19.7% drop in profits.

    1 minute read

  • September 10, 2008 |

    After the fall

    Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft's annus horribilis began last summer with a phone call from a client in trouble. James Cayne, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Bear Stearns, was on the line for Dennis Block, his longtime outside counsel. Two Bear Stearns hedge funds were heading for bankruptcy, and Cayne wanted Block to help manage the fallout. What neither man knew was that this failure was the first death rattle for Bear Stearns and, even more important, a spark for the subprime mortgage inferno, a financial disaster that would undercut two of Cadwalader's main businesses.In August, Christopher White, who ran Cadwalader's real estate finance practice, was at his home in New York, trying to enjoy a family vacation. But he couldn't get off his phone as one of the biggest deals of his career threatened to unravel. White represented the banks that had financed Blackstone Group's $26bn (£14.7bn) acquisition of Hilton Hotels Corporation. And now, having sized up the capital markets, they wanted out - all nine. The banks ultimately stuck it out under renegotiated terms, but it was still shocking to White. "In 30 years, I have never seen anything like that," he would remark a year later.

    1 minute read

  • September 10, 2008 |

    Nabarro recruits A&O counsel for competition

    Nabarro has hired Brian Sher as a partner in its London EU and competition practice. Sher will join from Allen & Overy where he is a counsel in the antitrust group. Nabarro has also hired Beachcroft partner Chris Horsfield as a partner in the dispute resolution team in Sheffield. Horsfield was based in Beachcroft's Leeds office.

    1 minute read