DLA Piper has appointed Sam Szlezinger as a partner in the Competition team, part of the Litigation & Regulatory group. He will join the firm from Dentons where he became a partner in 2001 More >>

Cooley is enhancing its life sciences corporate group with the arrival of London-based partners John Wilkinson and Nicola Maguire. Wilkinson and Maguire, who have worked together for many years, join from Reed Smith. They are among the first partner additions to Cooley’s London office since its 20-partner January launch More >>

The Dechert Finance Real Estate team in London advised on the finance aspects of the £1.1 billion (US$1.65 billion) acquisition of the Liberty Living Group by the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPPIB”) which completed yesterday. The acquisition is the first investment in an alternative real estate sector for CPPIB and it is also the largest real estate deal CPPIB has ever done in Europe. More >>

DLA Piper has appointed Denise R Hamer to its Finance & Projects group. Denise will divide her time between the firm’s Vienna, London and Prague offices.

Prior to joining DLA Piper, Denise was a partner at Richards, Kibbe & Orbe in London and before that, Schoenherr in Vienna. She also held senior roles at several financial institutions, including the Austrian portfolio bank of Cerberus Capital, BAWAG P.S.K, Citigroup and Societe Generale, as well as the consultancy Arthur Andersen.

More >>

Cooley announces that it will enhance its London business and finance practice with the hiring of Stephen Rosen, a leading London-based private equity and venture capital partner.

Rosen has experience advising high-growth companies, institutional investors, entrepreneurs and management teams on corporate transactions. He has particular expertise in company sales and purchases, mergers and acquisitions and private equity and venture capital financings across a range of industry sectors.

More >>

The Firm has represented Blackstone Capital Partners and CVC Capital Partners on the sale of their respective remaining stakes in Merlin Entertainments Plc (“Merlin”). The secondary offering, which was effected pursuant to a block trade by way of an accelerated book build, raised gross sale proceeds of approximately £653 million (US$1 billion). The sale was the last in a series of block trades which has seen Blackstone and CVC reduce their stakes in Merlin from approximately 21% and 12% respectively to zero since the time of Merlin’s IPO in November 2013, raising aggregate total gross sale proceeds of approximately £1.3 billion (US$2 billion). More >>