IFLR 1000
The Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms

"Very good people, broad practice, lots of jurisdictions, a lot of merger work, state aid and cartel: high quality," says a peer. One client recommends the firm saying: "Good communication, friendly, always available [and] very knowledgeable."

Among the leading individuals in the firm's 40-strong partnership is John Kallaugher, who is recommended in the telecoms sector especially, Javier Ruiz-Calzado (the Brussels and Spain co-chair), Brussels-based Howard Rosenblatt, Mark Hansen (who splits his time between London and Brussels) and the Paris / Brussels partner Eric Barbier de la Serre.

On the cartel side, the firm advised Toshiba, Singapore Airlines Cargo (SIAC) and ArcelorMittal. The latter case followed nine years of investigation by the Commission into the prestressing steel cartel, and recently resulted in the firm winning an unprecedented reduction of fines for its client from €276 million to €46 million. The case has prompted new policy announcements on fining levels and the procedure of revealing fining levels recipients.

L&W also received favourable results for SIAC (a case which spanned Europe, the Americas and Asia), which it is now defending against on damages claims by British Airways. The Toshiba case was notable for its use of the new settlement procedures.

Merger cases included the firm's advice to Live Nation on its $2.5 billion merger with Ticketmaster, which resulted in phase one clearance.

After a couple of strong recommendations from its peers, Latham & Watkins has moved up one tier this year. "Latham & Watkins should be at least tier three and they hired a banking partner Riccardo Agostinelli from Ashurst about a year ago," says one competitor, while another adds: "They've got a number of people, they've got Italian law banking capacity, but now English law, but they're probably better than tier four I suspect. They probably should be moved up to three."

An Italian team led by Andrea Novarese advised a consortium of banks, including Intesa Sanpaolo, Banca IMI and Banca Monte dei Paschi Siena, on the debt refinancing and new financing through revolving credit facilities granted to Comifar and Comifar Distribuzione.

One of the largest corporate lending transactions in 2010 saw Novarese involved again advising Intesa Sanpaolo on the financing granted to a major Italian listed company operating in the food, beverage and retail services industry in the negotiation of a financing.

"In my view its appropriate to have Latham in tier one due to the size and scale of their practice, they are out on their own." This view from one partner pretty much sums up general market opinion towards the Latham high-yield team. The fact is that in a market as thriving as the UK scene has been in the last 18 months, capacity suddenly counts for a lot. "I think they are still there to be honest," concurs another peer. "They are no better than anyone else but they have a huge bench and can cover the market like no-one else. I think they still sit at the top of the table."

With a dedicated four partner team led by Brett Cassidy and Richard Trobman, the high-yield practice at the firm is easily the biggest in London and this is reflected in the level of work the firm has carried out in the past 12 months. Cassidy and Trobman also led from the front advising on the majority of the firm's high-profile mandates.

"Unquestionably one of the market leaders in high-yield, the size of their platform and footprint sets them aside from the others. Richard is vastly experienced, Brett is creative and very gifted," says one client.

In 2010 alone the team acted on European mandates worth a combined $20.7 billion. Highlights are many, although one deal that stands out considering the current trends in the market is the firm's advice to Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank as the underwriters of Wind Acquisition Finance's offering of senior secured notes, the largest to date by a European issuer.

The team acted for the same two banks again, this time alongside Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, ING and JP Morgan in regard to Dutch cable company Ziggo's issue of €1.2 billion in senior subordinated notes due in 2018.

The firm wasn't restricted to bank side representation and showed its flexibility when it advised CVC and Sunrise Communications on the issue of senior secured and straight senior notes as part of the acquisition finance acquired by CVC for the takeover of Sunrise. The deal also represented the largest LBO in Europe since the financial crisis.

"I think Latham are the leader by size of team and number of transactions, I think that's fair," says another partner. Clients also clearly saw the benefit of the teams' larger capacity: "High quality partners matched by equally high quality associates makes it a good deal all round," says one succinctly.

As you would expect from a market leading practice, the firm's services do not come cheap, but client's accept that you get what you pay for: "They command high fees because they are good and high class and you get what you pay for," says one, "Their business delivers." Others point out that clients get more than just advice: "Proactive, they give education training classes, updates on developments in the market, active engagement in conferences, recommendations to clients," says another. "The partner relationship is very important, in a highly leveraged risky situations you have to have what I call adult supervision you need the confidence of someone with high experience."

With high-yield now a key part of the European financing landscape, mandates in these matters have been plentiful. Last year Cassidy and Trobman acted for Barclays Capital and JPMorgan over the €740 million secured debt offering by Ineos as part of its senior debt refinancing.

"I think Latham are the leader by size of team and number of transactions, I think that's fair," says another partner.

The Latham & Watkins London financing team has been gradually building a reputation since the practice was kick started by the acquisition of several finance partners from US rival White & Case in 2009. The firm's strategy has been to create a London practice with equal strength in bank, bond and high-yield work and the London team's growing reputation has made this a realistic target.

One of those former White & Case partners is Chris Kandel and clients view him as a key asset: "Christopher is highly innovative, at the cutting edge of creativity," says one "As a lawyer he's a big asset to Latham. Very knowledgeable of the business area." The same client continues: "Great team, following the move from White & Case they have become more credible market leaders within banking and high-yield."

The team's twin focus is bank and sponsor side work. In the former category, acquisition finance was the order of the day last year, in one such deal Dominic Newcomb acted for key client Deutsche Bank alongside Nomura, BBVA, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Morgan Stanley in relation to $3.3 billion of senior credit facilities made available to Grifols for the acquisition of Talecris. Newcomb also acted for the Intermediate Capital Group in relation to mezzanine and Pik facilities made available to Exponent for the acquisition of Premier Food's meat free division.

Barclays Capital is a key client of the firm and last year Brian Conway acted for Barclays Capital in relation to the $2.4 billion financing for the acquisition of Tommy Hilfiger by Phillips-Van Heusen. BarCap called in the firm again when Jay Sadanandan advised it alongside Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the €700 million financing for Blackstone's acquisition of Mivisa.

On the sponsor side Sadanandan was again involved advising CVC on the combined CH3.3 billion (£2.5 billion) bank and bond financing for its acquisition of Sunrise Communications in what was the third largest LBO in 2010.

Sadanandan also came in for client praise: "She is technically very strong, commercially very strong, good at leading us in negotiations and has a good balance for negotiating better deals. A lot of depth in our business area," says one. "Latham is one of the top firms, their high-yield capacity makes them very strong." Another client backs up this view: "She was pretty excellent in everything done, pragmatic, user friendly, gets things done. Good high-yields and banking practice, the combination of the two put in place."

Reflecting the firm's recent focus on promoting itself as a combined bank and bond financing practice, Newcomb also recently acted for Onex and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board in regard to the $2.3 billion credit facility and $1.15 billion secured bond offering for the acquisition of Tomkins. A similar deal saw the team acting for Nordic Capital and Avista Capital Partners in relation to a $2.8 billion refinancing of Convartec consisting of an $850 million credit facility and $1.95 billion in senior bonds.

The Latham & Watkins project finance team has grown impressively in recent years. The six partner team, supplemented by new promotion Matthew Brown maintains a focus on power projects, although oil and gas related matters also form a key part of its offering.

Dennis Nordstrom and Bill Voge are the firm's key figures and both had a hand in projects with a wide geographical sweep last year. One client who worked with both said: "I was impressed with their ability to communicate, the way in which they were able to work with multilingual groups of people on both sides of the table during the transaction and in the timeframe considering the complexity of the deal. We have done many finance deals, two law firms stands out from the rest and Latham and Watkins is one of them."

Indeed so key are the partners that many clients pointed out that the strength of the relationship came from them. "The partner relationship is always important because he is ultimately behind the team, Bill is fully involved in business, he is not remote. If Bill was to move to another firm it would have a damaging effect on Latham, it is the partner people identify with the most." Another says: "I feel very valued, they make the effort. Dennis is the reason I am with Latham, personally I follow Dennis."

Africa is proving to be a major source of mandates for UK practices and so it proved for Latham. Last year Nordstrom acted on the $1.1 billion project financing granted to NGL II, an offshore LNG (liquefied natural gas) project in Nigeria. In addition Nordstrom and new partner Matthew Brown also acted for the developers of a 500MW IPP (independent power project) also in Nigeria.

Further afield the team also acted for the banks, export credit agencies - including the Export-Import banks of China and the US and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation – and the underwriters of the $14 billion financing for the PNG LNG project in Papua New Guinea. Nordstrom was again involved alongside London partners Voge and Simon Dickens and a team drawn from the firm's China, New York and Singapore offices.

The firm's presence in the Middle East has been growing in recent years following its triple office launch in the region in 2008 and several high-profile hires.

Clients are impressed with their knowledge, particularly that of Craig Nethercott, who has recently moved to the region from the London office: "Craig was up on the markets, he has a lot of credibility, his style was very cooperative with the other side, no time was wasted negotiating with such large numbers of people, he did a good job keeping everything together despite the large number of people involved," says one client. "Great knowledge of project finance, they knew the business well, as well as the landscape and political issues in Saudi."

Last year this growing influence was demonstrated when Nordstrom and Nethercott acted for the lenders including EDC and US-Exim on the $1.8 billion financing provided to GDF Suez for the development of the PP-11 IPP project in Saudi Arabia.

Two of the key figures at Latham & Watkins are John Houghton and Holly Neavill who provide both UK and US advice on restructuring and insolvency matters.

A client who worked with both Christopher Hall and Neavill says: "The reason for choosing Latham was because of Christopher Hall. He is a very senior partner and he used to be a general counsel. He has a hands-on approach developing strategies with a group of advisors. Holly was the extended arm, she was instrumental in negotiation and implementing, not just giving advice on situations, she was actively involved with my delegation. Christopher gave a valuable input and saved us a lot of money. Latham is a top brand."

The firm's communication with its other offices was also praised: "Moscow did very well on security issues, they performed very well together, very useful, for anti monopoly issues they communicated very well internally."

The team has had roles on some of the year's biggest mandates including Dubai World. Making use of its increasing presence in the Middle East, the firm acted for the Dubai Financial Support Fund and the Government of the emirate on the major restructuring, which was notable not only for its size but as its status as the first major restructuring of a UAE state entity, a sign that the financial crisis had reached the previously immune states of the Gulf.

Another major mandate was the Wind Hellas restructuring, on which the team advised on a bridge facility granted by Morgan Stanley to the senior secured noteholders, with the funds used to acquire the telecoms company.