Nabarro has announced a trio of partner hires including Allen & Overy (A&O) corporate partner Patrick Speller and Osborne Clarke (OC) co-head of planning Wesley Fongenie.
Speller and Fongenie are set to start at the firm in June and will join with Stepien Lake Gilbert & Paling real estate founder partner Paul Paling, who was hired by the firm earlier this month. The three new appointments will bring the number of lateral hires by Nabarro over the last 12 months to 11.
Speller has been a partner at A&O since 2000. Last year he advised Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, alongside fellow corporate partner Andrew Ballheimer, on the £1.54bn rights issue and £2.3bn debt financing for Resolution’s acquisition of Abbey’s UK and offshore life insurance business.
Fongenie specialises in planning work for a broad range of developer and investor clients. He has been a partner at OC since 2001.
The hires are the latest in a series of external appointments for Nabarro, which at the end of last year hired four partners at one time. Alternative Investment Market specialists Ian Binnie and Elliot Shear joined Nabarro’s London office from McGrigors and Baker & McKenzie respectively, while Geldards corporate partner Ben Hendry and Pinsent Masons construction partner Ian Radford also joined.
The hires also come as Nabarro’s end of year forecast looks set to see its turnover increase by around 13% and its partner profits by around 20%. Preliminary figures show the firm’s turnover has increased from £107.3m to £121m while average equity partner profits are set to hit around £540,000.
Nabarro senior partner Simon Johnston said: “These senior partner laterals show the high calibre of people that Nabarro continues to attract into the partnership. The seven recent internal promotions and the 11 lateral partners brought into the partnership during the last financial year demonstrate our confidence in the continued success of the firm.”
