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

Hannes Snellman, the leading Finnish firm, is quickly becoming a strong force in Nordic terms. The firm recently recruited partner Peter Forsberg from Vinge to its Swedish office, as well adding a Cleary Gottlieb associate in Helsinki and former Goltsblat BLP counsel in Moscow.

The firm handled a phase two merger clearance for Myllykoski Corporation and Rhein Papier on the €900 million sale of both paper manufacturers to UPM Kymmene. The deal involves clearances from various jurisdictions and the resolution of complex horizontal overlaps.

The firm successfully established the legitimacy of Finnish state aid granted to Componenta. In a similar but on-going matter, the firm was helping municipal enterprise Palmia defend the legality of its state aid from the Finnish government.

The firm was also advising a bidder in the sale of Ovako Steel on competition matters that would arise following an acquisition, given the steel company was distressed and taken over by banks. The firm is also advising a company in the commission's investigation into the truck sector.

Hannes Snellman is a new arrival in Copenhagen this year marking its launch with a sweeping raid on Bech-Bruun, taking partners Philip Rijsborn, Peter Lyck and Mikkel Baaring Lerche.

The market will wait to see what impact the new team can make.

Hannes is an all-round tier one firm in Finland. Clients give strong feedback and both Mikko Heinonen and Klaus Ilmonen are highly respected by competitors. Ilmonen is recommended for his "practical approach [and] fairly good business-like model". "When we cannot make mistakes I go to them and I feel comfortable," says a client, "the quality of work is excellent."

According to another client: "They have a good team for capital markets, the best in Finland; they have a clearer view of the direction to take than others." A third client compliments the team's faithfulness to deadlines: "They try to do everything on time. They have a good project culture [and are] sensitive to how to organise a project timeline."

The firm, which handles a high volume of work, acted on two secondary offerings, for Suominen Corporation and Oral Hammaslääkärit, which both completed rights issues of €10 million. The firm reached outside the market to find more equity work and was engaged by Herbert Smith to advise on the Finnish aspects of Ruukki Group's IPO on the LSE in July 2010.

In the busier debt markets the firm assisted Ahlstrom as issuer of €100 million in 4.5% senior unsecured notes due in 2015 arranged by Nordea and Pohjola banks. Henrik Mattson led teams on two €10 billion debt programmes: an EMTN and covered bond programme for Nordea Bank and a covered bond programme for OP Mortgage Bank.

Hannes has been diverting considerable resources into new offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen recently and its Helsinki team is now smaller in numbers relative to rivals than it used be. Added to this, some competitors comment that within banking the firm is not as prominent on the lender side (or as counsel to the banks) as some others.

However, it continues to be a very large and well established firm and its new offices give it regional, rather than just national, clout. Volume may have gone down (a tough call considering the market), but clients do not see any change in quality.

"It is our top firm for finance," says a regular client of a number of firms: "We are very comfortable with them and our cooperation has been going for many years." Markus Bemer, Henrik Mattson and Matti Engelberg are well recognised leaders in the field, with Bremer, the newest of the three partners, being described by peers as "a very bright individual and good to work with". Engelberg continues to be one of the market's key individuals for all types of lending and syndicated lending.

Mattson recently advised the lenders on a €700 million revolving facility agreement to Stora Enso and Bremer acted for ING Real Estate Nordics on a €62 million refinancing agreement for Merikortteli and Brondankulma properties.

On the borrower side, Engelberg advised Metso Corporation, one of Finland's top blue-chips, on a €500 million multicurrency revolving facility from a large group of banks including Commerzbank, Citibank, Danske Bank, Nordea Bank and Pohjola Bank. The firm also advised Eiendomsspar on the purchase and refinancing of the Norgani Hotels hotel chain, Lemminkäinen on a €385 million refinancing and BlackRock on financing and regulatory matters.

Hannes remains a sure bet for top tier M&A support and according to one peer it sits "in a very strong position" in the market. Having said that there are some changes that need noting. Through 2010-11 the firm lost five partners (Markus Engberg, Alexander Bargum, Juhani Mäkinen and most recently leading – in October 2011 – lawyers Carl-Henrik Wallin and Mathias Lindqvist) and five associates. While market reaction to the moves in mid-2011 is summed up by one peer’s assertion that "they are still leaders in the market" only time will tell what effect the October departures may have.

Of the departures, Bargum joined the family business and Mäkinen's was a planned retirement, both of which gave the firm time to prepare. Engberg left to join corporate boutique Hästö & Salingre and Wallin left in October 2011 to launch new corporate finance law firm Avance. Wallin was subsequently joined by Matthius Linqvist, who had temporarily been promoted to head of private M&A.

The firm turned over a number of strong deals through the period. Lindqvist and Johan Aalto led a team to advise Renesas Electronics on its $200 million acquisition of Nokia's wireless modem business and a cross-office team also acted as Finnish and Swedish local counsel to Shell on the $640 million sale of a majority stake in its refining and marketing divisions to Keele. Again flexing regional muscle, another cross-office team advised Pohjola on a string of transactions including its sale of Pohjola Capital Partners, the acquisition of 40% stake in Access Capital Partners Group and subsequent the sale of Pohjola Private Equity Funds to Access Capital.

In another deal, the firm represented Myllykoski and Rhein Papier on the sale to UPM-Kymmene. Christoffer Charpentier, Sten Olsson (head of private equity) and Outi Raitasuo led on some of the deals. The transactions are easily some of the most high profile in the Finnish market.

As indicated last year, Hannes is a firm on the way up. It has a good image particularly in the equity capital markets as a young, vibrant and up-and-coming firm but it also has experience, having plucked, and continuing to do so, key established players from firms including Setterwalls, Vinge and Linklaters. The firm recently did it again, hiring partner Björn Kristiansson from Vinge in September 2010 and then partner Christoffer Saidac from Vinge in January 2011.

Commentators consistently rate Sören Lindström, Saidac and Kristiansson as the elite in equity capital markets in the country. "I like them, they are easy to work with and they worked well with the opposing side," says a client adding: "they have a great team, fairly young associates and young partners but very good". Another client likes "the attention we get, the feeling you get that they can take the deal forward, that they don't negotiate on irrelevant points".

In terms of its recent track record Hannes picked up some of the biggest public offers in the country (see M&A) as well as a string of IPO mandates and secondary offerings.

In one exemplary secondary share offering, Lindström led a large team flexing Stockholm and Helsinki muscle to advise Fiskars Group and its subsidiary Avlis on the secondary offering of its €111 million NASDAQ OMX shares in Wärtsilä Corp to an international panel of investors. The firm also worked on some of the highest profile public offers, including EQTs €250 million public offer for Academedia.

In mid-2011 Lindström and team were working on five confidential IPOs.

The firm also gets praised for its smaller debt practice. "They are the best that we use", says a debt capital markets client who also uses Cederquist, White & Case, Roschier and Ashurst. "I like the attention you get, the feeling that they can take forward the deal, they are a benefit to have in negotiations and they negotiate on the key relevant points only," says the client.

Hannes Snellman moves up this year and there is more than a strong chance it will continue in its ascendency. "It has been a fantastic success story", says one competitor. Clients also like the firm: "I like them a lot, they are easy to work with; we used Fredrik Madani who worked really well with me and with the opposing side which was a private equity firm, and he has a good team with fairly young associates".

Hannes has been hiring ruthlessly in the past years and most recently has focused on its junior bench, with some success according to peers. "It is one of the most popular firms for new entrants," says a partner, "they are up and coming with a positive outlook, they've built a fairly stable team... great at media relations".

It already has a strong profile in capital markets and M&A and its financing arm had a fortuitous year, backing winning bidders in a number of public acquisitions to secure acquisition financing mandates and to win key sector clients.

One exemplary deal saw Paula Röttorp, a former Vinge senior associate and now partner at Hannes, Madani and Ludvig Blomqvist advise Nordea and Proventus Capital on the acquisition financing to a confidential group which successfully bid to buy an internet travel agency. The deal resulted in a string of follow up loans for business expansion and a second acquisition of Scanworld, where Hannes continued to advise Nordea and Proventus, both of which are key financing players.

Hannes also landed one of the largest LBO financings of 2010, when Madani and Jon Cohen acted for Triton in the acquisition of healthcare company Ambea. In the deal, Triton, working with KKR, won a bid to acquire the pan-Nordic Ambea and Hannes advised on LBO financing.

The firm won a number of other interesting deals, among them advising Nordea on acquisition financing to Axcel in February 2011 and acting for Finans on the financing of new buses for the Stockholm area.

As pointed out last year Hannes has had a very strong first few years in the market and has been especially quick to establish itself in M&A.

"They've been successful and really good, went really fast, now 60 or 70 lawyers, so huge amount of really young lawyers," says a peer. Alluding to the youth of the team one peer bets that "in long term they will be a strong practice". It is now the tenth biggest law firm in Sweden and "very well in upper echelons of the market", says another peer.

Although a young firm in some respects, the M&A team is led by an experienced group plucked from the core of Setterwalls: Jan Jensen, Sören Lindström and Richard Åkerman.

The firm was fortunate to back a number of winning parties in some of the largest public M&A deals of the year. Lindström and Fredrik von Baumgarten were the advisers to EQT on its €250 million public offer for Academedia, the biggest private educational company in Sweden. It was a testing process for the firm as the bid was highly competitive against Providence Equity Partners.

The bidding process also involved the country's other top firms Linklaters, Vinge and Gernandt & Danielsson.

In another public deal, Lindström and Björn Kristianson advised the board of NetOnNet on a public tender offer by Waldir, which prompted an initially mixed response by the target company before morphing into a more straight forward takeover in March 2011.

Christoffer Saidac and Ebba Werkell helped Investment AB Öresund divest its stake from the collapsed HQ Bank, which involved a substantial amount of capital markets advice as well.