Allen & Overy Loses Managing Partner Amid Shearman Merger Talks

// Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling are poised to create a Biglaw behemoth, A&O Shearman, if their proposed merger is approved by the partnership of both firms. Once combined, the firm will have 3,900 lawyers with approximately 800 partners, spread across 49 offices. A&O Shearman’s combined revenue will total $3.4 billion.

But there’s nothing quite like a managing partner abandoning ship amid tie-up talks that’ll throw an unexpected wrench into the best laid plans.

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Allen & Overy’s global managing partner Gareth Price, a 30-year veteran of the firm, recently announced that he’d be leaving for “personal reasons,” with a year left to serve in his term. He spent the last three years of his time at the firm as managing partner. The American Lawyer has more:

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Price’s departure will come as a surprise to the wider industry given he still had another year on his term and is only 51 years old. Commenting on the departure, global senior partner, Wim Dejonghe said: “I want to express our gratitude for Gareth’s stellar contribution to A&O over the last 30 years—starting out as a trainee, becoming one of our youngest partners in 2003 and being elected managing partner in 2020.”

He added: “He led our market-leading energy and infrastructure practice for many years and as managing partner steered us through the pandemic and played a pivotal role in the negotiations with Shearman & Sterling that set us up for success in the future.”

Dejonghe, who previously held Price’s position, will be doing double duty as he takes on the responsibilities of managing partner for the time being until a replacement is named, all while hyping up the merger during a series of worldwide town hall meetings. Dejonghe doesn’t think that Price’s sudden departure will have any effect on the firms’ combination, telling the Financial Times, “We are on both sides really confident we will get the 75 per cent approval that we need.”

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Meanwhile, A&O has been busy spreading the good word about its most recent financial results. The firm increased revenue by 7% over the course of the last year, up to £2.1 billion (~$2.75 billion), of which $2.5 billion was U.S. revenue. Profits drooped, however — from £900 million down to £892 million — which Dejonghe blamed on the “inflationary environment.”

A vote on the merger was originally planned for sometime this summer, but has been pushed back to October.

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Allen & Overy Managing Partner Exits Ahead of Merger, as Revenue Surpasses £2 Billion | The American Lawyer [American Lawyer]
Allen & Overy Managing Partner Exits Amid Shearman Merger [Bloomberg Law]
Allen & Overy warns of headwinds as profits drop [Financial Times]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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A&O Shearman, Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Law Firm Merger Mania, Law Firm Mergers, Partner Issues, Shearman & Sterling