Nick Rumsby joins Cleary Gottlieb to strengthen its global M&A practice

Nick Rumsby joins Cleary Gottlieb to strengthen its global M&A practice

Top 30 US firm marks rare lateral for City partner with the arrival of Nick Rumsby

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has boosted its London corporate offering by adding Nick Rumsby from Linklaters where he was a Partner.

Bringing a track record in advising on market-leading public M&A contracts to his new firm, Rumsby has previously advised Unilever on the successful defence to the $145bn approach from Kraft-Heinz and SABMiller on the recommended AB InBev offer of $108bn.

"We're excited at Nick's inclusion in our firm," stated Michael Gerstenzang, Cleary managing partner. "Nick is a leader in the public M&A field. His skill in helping clients steer complex M&A transactions will reinforce our global M&A practice, with London as a key pillar."

After above 16 years as a partner at Linklaters, Rumsby joins Cleary. He was heading one of the firm's four corporate groups since last six years. According to Cleary, serving as secretary at the UK Takeover Panel for two years from 2008 gave him 'invaluable' experience in the UK public M&A market.

Private M&A, reorganisations, joint ventures, demergers, listing rule work and equity financings comprise Rumsby's other main areas of practice.

Tihir Sarkar, partner in the London office said, "Our M&A practice has grown considerably over the past few years, notwithstanding potential market headwinds, we anticipate this to continue going forward. We view Nick as a key hire as we continue to build our UK offering. He is widely known as a leading practitioner in UK public M&A. We assume his appointment to advantage new clients, existing clients and our team massively."

According to its website, Cleary's London M&A team presently houses 19 lawyers including 10 partners. Acting as lead counsel to Allied Universal in its £3.8bn recommended cash offer for G4S, counselled by Linklaters include the latest deals for the team. Led by then-global head of corporate, Aedamar Comiskey Rumsby included in Linklaters team. He is now senior partner, also included corporate partner Kanyaka Ramamurthi.