Wistow, a partner at CC since 1997, will join BLP as a member of its board alongside managing partner Neville Eisenberg, senior partner Harold Paisner and other heads of department.
Wistow follows in the footsteps of the firm’s head of real estate, Robert MacGregor, who joined from CC in 2004, and Herbert Smith’s highly-rated property partner Chris de Pury, who is to join the firm later this year.
Details of the package that Wistow has been offered remain unconfirmed, but it is understood that the firm has again broken its lockstep arrangements for the strategic hire. De Pury is thought to have been taken on for as much as £1.5m while MacGregor joined for around £1.3m — at the time twice the firm’s average partner profits.
Commenting on the move, Eisenberg told Legal Week: “We are trying to leverage off our strong business and personal tax groups — which is becoming increasingly unusual in the City. We are trying to bring it together to increase its profile and grow it as part of the overall strategy of moving up the food chain and being able to advise on larger corporate transactions.”