Wim Dejonghe: the Belgian rainmaker sealing Allen & Overy’s deal with Shearman

When bothered New york city law practice Shearman & & Sterling’s merger talks with its transatlantic competitor, Hogan Lovells, collapsed in March, Shearman’s Adam Hakki understood who to call.

Days into his function as senior partner last month, Hakki got the phone to call Wim Dejonghe, the long-serving leader of Allen & & Overy, among London’s elite magic circle law practice. In a matter of weeks, the 2 were cloistered in a Manhattan workplace hashing out a $3.4 bn merger, which– if voted through– will be among the most significant the market has actually ever seen.

For Belgian-born Dejonghe– A&O’s very first foreign senior partner and prior to that, handling partner– a tie-up with a Wall Street company will be the fulfillment of a two-decade-long task to break the most profitable legal market on the planet, leaving its British competitors in the dust. For Shearman, it uses a path out of a torrid duration of partner exits and hard restructuring.

” I have actually understood Shearman for a very long time. [Hakki] entered the function [and] he understood we were interested,” Dejonghe, 62, informed the Financial Times. “The preliminary discussion was in between me and him. After a variety of conferences in between the 2 people, we believed: ‘this may work, really’.”

Shearman, a storied 150-year-old company that when recommended the cream of business America, is the far smaller sized entity, with $907mn in earnings in 2015 and about half of A&O’s more than 40 workplaces. However it has actually long been on Dejonghe’s dance card as a prospective suitor due to the fact that of crossovers in banking and financing.

Both companies had actually likewise found out lessons from previous stopped working mergers: in A&O’s case, collapsed talks with California-headquartered O’Melveny & & Myers, which ground to a stop in 2019 after 18 months of settlement.

” We understood [if] this leakages prior to we go to our partners, we’re dead,” stated Dejonghe. “So we concurred the only method we might provide something to [partners] was to sit together in a space for weeks and work out all the information.”

Shearman decreased to comment.

With a little core group– consisting of advisors from heavyweight Wall Street law practice Simpson Thacher & & Bartlett, and Davis Polk & & Wardwell– Hakki and Dejonghe decamped to financial investment bank Lazard’s workplaces in Manhattan to gather what would arrive at Sunday as a slick statement, total with site, customer Frequently asked questions and video.

Dejonghe’s predecessor, David Morley, credits him for the speed of the Shearman talks, which were performed within weeks. “Really couple of individuals might have done this, however Wim has actually had this clear tactical vision for a very long time.”

Morley, who led the company together with then-managing partner Dejonghe for 8 years to 2016 states: “Wim didn’t awaken the other day and state: ‘it ‘d be terrific to do a merger’ … The company has actually been considering and discussing it for a minimum of twenty years, and taking a look at alternatives. So they were prepared to move actually rapidly when this turned up.”

Morley and Dejonghe, considered as a modernising force at A&O, invested years pounding the pavements in New york city and on the United States west coast in the wake of the monetary crisis, dining with law practice leaders in powerbroker hotspot Estiatorio Milos in Manhattan.

” Some individuals would see us,” states Morley. “Others were terrified of even being seen in a dining establishment with us in case their partners saw us or it entered journalism. We weren’t asking individuals: ‘do you desire a merger?’– simply developing relationships and getting insight.” He stated this suggested Dejonghe had actually developed a “respectable Rolodex of American companies”.

A&O has actually long had workplaces in the United States. However growing there has actually not appeared cruising. Like its worldwide competitors, A&O has actually had a hard time to burglarize a market controlled by a pack of extremely successful domestic companies with higher firepower to pay star partners. Wall Street’s leading companies tend to be securely focused, with just a handful of worldwide workplaces and a pipeline of profitable personal equity and financing work.

By contrast, A&O and its magic circle peers in the UK have vast international networks, using customers a far broader range of work. That has actually made them one-stop purchase lots of corporations, however less successful than their United States peers. Partners at Wall Street companies such as Simpson Thacher and Davis Polk took house more than $5mn usually in 2015, for instance, while M&A powerhouse Wachtell Lipton Rosen & & Katz partners filched more than $7mn. On the other hand, A&O’s partners took house ₤ 1.95 mn ($ 2.4 mn) usually in 2015.

Tony Williams, a specialist who was handling partner at Clifford Opportunity when it combined with American company Rogers & & Wells in 2000, stated: “The magic circle have actually been challenged in the last years by the strength of the United States economy. And Brexit didn’t assist: sterling is now at $1.23.”

One previous high-ranking A&O partner stated: “Every magic circle company has actually been aiming to enter into the United States market for the last thirty years, and a merger has actually constantly been the most sensible method however it’s incredibly hard to do. The leading American companies have actually constantly been a lot more successful, which for them is a proxy for quality.”

He included, “Shearman has actually had some problems over the previous couple of years, and all of a sudden they were readily available and there’s a chance for a match.”

Huge distinctions in partner pay made it hard for UK companies to complete in the United States, an issue intensified by the more powerful dollar. As an outcome, under Dejonghe, A&O has actually slowly tried its so-called lockstep pay structure, where partners are paid according to time served, to pay star entertainers more.

Dejonghe, who another previous partner referred to as “charming and entrepreneurial”, is no complete stranger to abroad mergers, where weding 2 various cultures is crucial to success. The business legal representative, who has 5 boys, signed up with A&O when it consolidated part of Loeff Claeys Verbeke– a Brussels-based company Dejonghe led as handling partner.

He stated the Shearman merger is a “merger of equates to” in the very same method as that offer. “You can’t state to your future coworkers, we’re getting you,” he stated. “That’s not the state of mind. It does not work like that.”

Ending up being handling partner at A&O suggested leaving Belgium’s cobblestoned streets and its lots of biking races. Dejonghe, who cycles to A&O’s Spitalfields workplace every day, is a veteran of amateur occasions consisting of the Etape du Trip and the Trip of Flanders.

” I have actually beinged in his slipstream fluctuating mountains for several years,” stated Morley. “We utilized to tease him that he was great on the flat. He utilized to retort that in Belgium you’re constantly cycling versus the wind. We were constantly joking with each other; it was sort of a metaphor for the method we interacted.”

” Hills are not my preferred to be sincere,” Dejonghe yielded. “Offer me the Trip of Flanders anytime.”

The Shearman offer ahead of him is most likely to be an obstacle of a really various kind, and possibly the peak of his 15 years at the top. However Dejonghe is sanguine: “I have actually constantly had a forward-thinking state of mind. I’m most likely a bit more positive than some legal representatives.”