Weil Gotshal & Manges

Weil Gotshal & Manges is regarded as one of the US’s elite group of firms, with average partner profits currently standing at above $3.5m. It is also among the largest by revenue, with turnover in 2018 reaching $1.46bn.

The firm’s global practice centres on a core of areas, notably bankruptcy, corporate and litigation while its strategy in recent years has seen it focus even more sharply on the world’s most important financial centres. At the beginning of 2018, Weil Gotshal & Manges shut down its office in Budapest, with the local team of around 20 lawyers including two partners de-camping to Bird & Bird. The firm also closed its office in Dubai in 2017.

Weil Gotshal & Manges is particularly well known for corporate (in particular private equity), finance, complex litigation and its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructuring and related capabilities. Indeed, it is this latter practice for which Weil Gotshal & Manges is probably best known, with clients it has advised on stand-out matters in the latter area ranging from Lehman Brothers, General Motors, Westinghouse Electric, SunEdison and AMR Corporation along with many others.

The firm also regularly appears on some of the world’s biggest M&A deals, with recent highlights including involvement in Reynolds American’s $49bn merger with British American Tobacco and Scripps Networks $14.6bn merger with Discovery Communications. In total in 2017, Weil Gotshal & Manges advised on more than 80 $1bn-plus deals.

The firm has been a fixture of the UK market for more than two decades and is predominantly staffed by English qualified lawyers. Indeed, its current London head Mike Francies personifies that stability, running the office since taking over from high-profile lawyer Maurice Allen in 2000. Since then the UK platform has expanded significantly, notably with litigation, funds and leveraged finance adding to the traditional strengths in private equity and structured finance. There are currently 31 partners in Weil Gotshal & Manges’s London office and around 150 lawyers.

Notable recent deals handled by Weil Gotshal & Manges’s London office include representing Oaktree Capital on the global sale of Fitness First, Advent International on the acquisition of London-listed Brammer (Advent’s first ever UK take-private transaction) and on the subsequent financing of a reverse bolt-on acquisition of IPH Group from PAI Partners, and offshore drilling provider Paragon Offshore on its parallel Chapter 11 and English administration proceedings.

Weil, founded in 1931, now has around 1,100 lawyers worldwide, two-thirds of whom operate out of the US with the balance in six offices across Europe (including London) and three in Asia-Pacific.