Supporters of single office City-based corporate finance firms have been having a hard time of late, thanks to the highly inconvenient tendency of these very same firms to go international. First Macfarlanes forged a ‘best friends’-style deal in Germany. Then Travers Smith Braithwaite went a step further by opening an office there. Now it is the turn of the highly profitable corporate finance boutique Dickson Minto to go European.
Or at least that is the strategy laid out in an internal document seen by Legal Week. It is, of course, no coincidence that all three firms have substantial private equity practices and have owed much of their success to their focus on this distinct portion of the corporate finance market. But all good things come to an end. Not only has this market become more competitive as rivals wise up to its potential, but it has also, as we point out in this week’s Deal Week commentary, become more international.
