Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Weil, Gotshal & Manges (generally referred to as Weil) has one of the top deal-making teams in the City. Like many top US-firms, it specialises particularly in private equity. Unlike many of those firms, it also has a massive hedge: one of the premier restructuring groups around. This combination creates a formidable corporate practice with impressive profitability whether or not the global macroeconomic headwinds are friendly. To start, Weil has a very well-regarded transactional team which works on some of the biggest matters in the City. The Band-1 ranked team includes Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and KKR among its regular clients. Its financial performance is similarly impressive, with its M&A team having the sixth-highest revenue per partner in the City and its banking and finance team having the third-best performance on this metric. This comes off the back of higher leverage than is typical for US-teams, with numbers more similar to their UK-based competitors. Weil has found a way to develop a clientele in the most profitable niches without relying on specific partners to do so. That being said, there are some stand-out names on the team. Chief among them is private equity-don Marco Compagnoni, advisor to Bain Capital, among others. One of the risks associated with the sort of private-equity dominated London-offices of US firms is that they may underperform if the broader deal-making environment suffers a downturn. Weil has, in fairly ingenious fashion, mitigated this risk by developing a market-leading team in a practice which is at its peak in exactly those conditions: restructuring and insolvency. Restructuring is a historical strength of the firm’s NYC home, and it was something Weil’s upper management always sought to replicate in its transatlantic expansion. It is fair to say they have been successful, with the Andrew Wilkinson-lead group ranking as the most frequently appointed counsel in European-based restructurings by value and volume. In this way, the firm provides itself with a source of revenue which will be at its strongest when market conditions are at their worst. The firm’s juniors also enjoy the benefit of a small-intake (something frequently touted by US-firms as increasing responsibility from day 1) with the sort of structure and experience which comes from Weil’s long-standing investment in the City. As the first New York firm to set-up shop in London, the firm avoids some of the pitfalls associated with rapidly assembled US-outposts, instead providing a supportive and friendly training environment.