Weil Gotshal & Manges’ City practice seems more contradictory by the day. Reinforced by a productive team recruited from Lovells last year, an office with partner talent to spare has chalked up an impressive run of mandates. Instructions from Terra Firma and Providence Equity Partners have come alongside a market-topping run in the US, where the firm has secured the pick of the current surge of buy-outs; a trend underlined by its current role on the Bell Canada P2P.
And only last month Weil Gotshal made a dramatic statement of intent when it switched its UK pay scale from mid-Atlantic to levels above the going benchmark on Wall Street. In a legal market driven by buy-outs, structured finance and currently desperately gearing up for a new wave of restructuring, everything should be clicking into place.
And yet, the doubts remain. Firm-wide Weil Gotshal was a curiously indifferent financial performer in 2006, a reflection some say that its market-leading insolvency practice has yet to adapt to a business cycle no longer defined by huge Chapter 11s. It has also been noted that the firm’s profitability is beginning to lag its Manhattan peers, with rivals pointing to recent failures to retain valued younger partners.
Also damaging have been claims of discord in the firm’s London office linked to the arrival of the Lovells contingent, which, it has been argued, has unsettled the team built around respected London head Mike Francies. The resignation this week of partner Will Rosen reflects this unsettled mood. Rosen, the first UK corporate assistant to join the firm 11 years ago, is close to Francies and the firm made little attempt to hide its disappointment at his departure. He is expected to take some time off, while a number of firms, including DLA Piper, are said to be interested in securing his services.
Some will see Rosen’s move as symptomatic of a more strained relationship between some of Weil Gotshal’s London partners and management in New York, drawing parallels with the Maurice Allen years. Even the recent pay rise has been read ambiguously, with the firm conceding that it needed to make a statement to bolster its attraction to in-demand mid-level associates.
The bottom line? Even ignoring most of the rumours flying about (this is private equity, after all), it seems hard to see how Weil Gotshal can fulfill its enormous potential without mustering a good deal more unity.
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