Akin Gump to Double Office Space in London
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(London, United Kingdom) – Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is pleased to announce that the firm will relocate its London office to Ten Bishops Square on August 18, 2008.
The new office, at approximately 25,000 sq ft, is almost twice the size of the firm’s existing premises, which reflects recent and anticipated growth in the London office.
Fred Heller, partner in charge of the London office, commented, “We are pleased to be moving to a new and larger office that will support our growth in leading the firm’s thriving international practice. The office focuses on our core practices of international corporate transactions in emerging markets and the energy sector, and in investment funds, including hedge and private equity funds. In our areas of concentration in particular, business activity continues to thrive and the demand for legal counsel experienced in these areas is surging.”
R. Bruce McLean, Akin Gump’s chairman, added, “Akin Gump’s London office is a key part of the firm’s global strategy, which calls for growth at all levels in that office to meet the expanding needs of our clients. We look forward to building on our successes there.”
The building is located next to Spitalfields market in the City of London and was designed and built by Foster and Partners. It is one of the leading buildings in Europe in terms of its environmental credentials, with “living roofs,” extensive solar panels and numerous other energy-efficient features such as motion-sensitive light and air-conditioning.
Akin Gump London’s recent representations include:
- Da Vinci CIS Private Sector Growth Fund on becoming the first investment entity to join the Specialist Fund Market, the London Stock Exchange’s new market for alternative investment vehicles
- OAO LUKOIL on its acquisition of a €1.347 billion stake in a joint venture with ERG S.p.A.
- OJSC Vimpel-Communications, one of Russia’s largest mobile phone operators, in its $4.3 billion acquisition of Golden Telecom, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed telecommunications company principally engaged in the provision of fixed telephony and broadband Internet in Russia and the CIS
- AIM-listed Urals Energy PLC in its acquisition of a major stake in Russian company OOO Taas-Yuriakh (TY) from a consortium of investors for an aggregate price of $600m, and the related $500 million financing from Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, together with a joint venture agreement with an international fund who acquired a portion of TY at the same time
- Apollo in establishing Apollo Fund VII, a multibillion-dollar private equity fund, one of the largest-ever buyout funds. The firm advised on the structuring of the fund and also led negotiations with numerous international investors.
The London office has established a reputation for representing companies from emerging markets, particularly Russia and the CIS, but increasingly the Middle East, India and Asia, in international M&A transactions and equity and debt capital markets listings on the London Stock Exchange, AIM and Euronext. It is also actively involved in the newly established Specialist Funds Market of the London Stock Exchange.
The London office regularly advises US and other non-UK-based clients in connection with M&A transactions and other international investments.
The number of fee earners in the London office is 31. The office has more than doubled its number of fee earners since January 2003. Practice team members in the firm’s other offices around the world also closely support lawyers in London. Clients are serviced by discrete teams, dependent on the legal needs of the client regardless of physical location of the lawyer concerned.
Founded in 1945, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a leading international law firm, numbers more than 1,000 lawyers and advisors in the United States, Europe and Asia.
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