Herbert Smith is set to combine its finance, real estate and projects practices when it merges with Australia’s Freehills later this year, as details emerge of how the new firm will be structured.

The two firms – which do not expect to make any redundancies as a result of the tie-up – have decided to merge the three practices in light of the fact that Freehills currently operates a combined banking and projects practice, as well as the consistent overlap between real estate and projects.