Crozier to cruise Baker McKenzie's global M&A practice
The firm’s London corporate partner Jannan Crozier has been named as its new global M&A chair
story
Crozier to cruise Baker McKenzie's global M&A practice The firm's London corporate partner Jannan Crozier has been named as its new global M&A chair Jannan Crozier, the London-based corporate partner of Baker McKenzie has been named by the firm as the next global chair of its M&A practice. She will replace Chicago-based Michael DeFranco who has been in the post since...
Crozier to cruise Baker McKenzie's global M&A practice
The firm's London corporate partner Jannan Crozier has been named as its new global M&A chair
Jannan Crozier, the London-based corporate partner of Baker McKenzie has been named by the firm as the next global chair of its M&A practice.
She will replace Chicago-based Michael DeFranco who has been in the post since 2015.
Crozier has had a long stint with Baker McKenzie, having joined the firm in 2003 in London as a trainee solicitor. Besides London, she has also served in the firm's Moscow and Sydney offices during her 18 years of association with the firm.
"She (Crozier) is able to connect with clients to understand not just what they need now but strategically what we should be doing to help them identify challenges and opportunities in three to five years' time. This is vital to the success of our practice and our clients who continue to navigate an increasingly complex and quickly evolving transactional landscape," Milton Cheng, Baker McKenzie's global chair, said.
Crozier has gained a rich cross-border M&A experience over the years having advised the likes of Hitachi on its $11 billion acquisition of ABB's global power grids business – the largest ever M&A deal by a Japanese industrial company.
She has also advised private equity firms like KKR on its $4.3 billion acquisition of beauty and hair retail business Wella from Coty.
"As a global M&A team we make complex cross-border M&A simple by bringing together corporate, finance and other specialists, who understand sector drivers. Our goal is to continue to grow ambitiously and to engage a whole new generation of M&A lawyers to create dynamic and diverse teams for our clients," Crozier said.
International law firms have started tightening their seatbelts as the global M&A activities have started gaining pace in view of increasing deals as the global economy rebounds in the post-pandemic era after such activities came to a grinding halt, especially in the first half of 2020. According to estimates, deals worth approximately $1.3 trillion have been carried out in the January-March quarter of this year, which is a record in itself for the first quarter of any calendar year in the past 41 years, ever since the process of compiling and keeping records started in 1980.