Travers Smith promotes 11 to partner in the largest round to date

Travers Smith promotes 11 to partner in the largest round to date

Our promotions reflect our core strengths in asset management, mergers and acquisitions and litigation and investigations.

11 new partners have been promoted to partners in Travers Smith, one of the top 35 law firms in the UK.

This cohort represents a huge improvement over last year when the firm promoted seven lawyers to partner, as well as in 2020 when five lawyers were made partners.

In the latest cohort, there were four women, which represents 36 percent of all participants, which is a small decrease from the two years before when women accounted for 43 percent and 40 percent of the total.

Travers Smith's spokesperson confirmed that women have accounted for 42.5 percent of all partners promoted since 2017, despite not setting gender diversity targets.

There is a mix of practice areas among the firm's new partners, all of whom are based in London. Among the firm's core focus areas are alternative asset management, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, as well as international disputes and investigations, according to Kathleen Russ, Travers Smith senior partner.

Victoria Bramall and Alex Dixon have also joined the firm's private equity and financial sponsors group. They specialize in international private equity and mergers and acquisitions. A pair of new partners joined the disputes resolution team - John Lee, who specializes in handling multijurisdictional commercial disputes and Joseph Moore, who has defended follow-on damages claims in the Competition Appeal Tribunal since joining the firm in 2018.

A new role in the financial services and markets team has been allocated to Danny Riding, who advises financial market participants on legal and regulatory requirements. Hugh Hutchison, a corporate M&A specialist, has been appointed to the corporate/infrastructure team.

A new partner was added to the firm's funds, pensions and real estate practices, while Sam Cottman, who was a senior commercial litigator prior to becoming the firm's first director of pro bono, also joined in 2020.

Furthermore, Brent Sanders was promoted to the corporate/US securities department, where he advises on US and UK capital market transactions. He specializes in Federal securities law.

Travers Smith Managing Partner Edmund Reed characterized the latest round as "a tangible demonstration of our belief in our business" as it continues to grow and be invested in. Reed stated that the firm has more than doubled in revenue and size in the past decade.

In addition to investing in our people, including this group of partners, Travers Smith is also planning to move to Stonecutter Court, which has strong environmental credentials and invest more widely in its future. "The London headquarters will better reflect our company's commitment to sustainability and the importance we place on it," he said.

When Stonecutter Court moves to Farringdon in 2025, the company will take over the top nine floors, totaling 158,000 square feet in the 13-storey building and in doing so will bring its London-based employees, which are currently split among two offices, under one roof.

As of last summer, Travers posted strong provisional financial results for the year ending 30 June. Revenues grew 15.4 percent to £185.7m and profit per equity partner (PEP) jumped 21.5 percent to £1.2m, a substantial increase. In contrast to two years ago, when revenue dropped by 1 percent while PEP plummeted by 20 percent, the firm posted a return to form in the figures.

Following the Covid-19-driven slump in H1 2020, deal markets experienced a sharp rebound following the second half of 2020 and well into 2021.

Conduit Holdings, the largest startup ever to raise £826m through the main market IPO, was the seventh of the 34 UK Main Market IPO and 22 secondary equity fundraisings the firm handled in 2020.

Travers recently announced it advised Morrisons about acquiring convenience store franchise McColl's after the chain entered into administration earlier this month.