White & Case has become the latest firm to enhance its London private equity practice through the hire of two new lawyers.
The US firm welcomes onboard Caroline Sherrell from Clifford Chance and Kenneth Barry from Debevoise & Plimpton.
Sherrell advises private equity houses and infrastructure funds on M&A, particularly within the energy and infrastructure sectors.
Barry focuses on advising private equity houses and handles equity capital markets matters in addition to M&A. He joins former Debevoise colleague Matthew Griffin in the White & case team.
White & Case started out on its current course of expanding its UK private equity team with the hire of Ian Bagshaw and Richard Youle from Linklaters at the end of 2013.
A number of other firms have looked to shore up their UK private equity teams in the past 12-18 months. Willkie Farr was one of the first to move with a double hire (Matthew Dean and Claire McDaid) from Kirkland & Ellis (July 2014), who themselves then re-hired Jim Learner from an in-house role and later added Roger Johnson from Linklaters (September 2015). Willkie later added Solomon Wifa from O'Melveny & Myers and Francois Feuillat from from Vinson & Elkins (July 2015).
Latham & Watkins meanwhile took a number of partners from Clifford Chance, including David Walker, Tom Evans and Africa specialist Kem Ihenacho (February 2014); while Gibson Dunn & Crutcher raided Ashurst for no less than four M&A/private equity practitioners in the forms of Jonathan Earle, Nigel Stacey, Mark Sperotto and the firm’s former head of department Charlie Geffen.
Allen & Overy hired Karen Dinamani from Ashurst (March 2014), Morrison & Foerster added Graham Sloane from Latham & Watkins (July 2015); Goodwin Procter hired Simon Fulbrook from King & Wood Mallesons (July 2015); Ashurst swooped for Shaun Lascelles from Skadden; Crowell & Moring added Jonathan Lisle from CMS (October 2015); and Watson Farley & Williams added Andy Savage from Norton Rose Fulbright (October 2015).