Getting to know Kramer Levin – a guide to HSF’s merger partner

Whereas Herbert Smith Freehills is among the best-known authorized manufacturers within the UK, it’s honest to say that Kramer Levin doesn’t have the identical identify recognition. So who’s HSF’s potential merger accomplice? Right here’s the whole lot you have to know.

The fundamental rationale for the merger is straightforward. The merged agency, which will likely be generally known as HSF Kramer within the US and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer elsewhere, brings collectively HSF’s substantive presence throughout the UK, APAC, and EMEA markets and £1.3bn in revenues – with Kramer Levin’s US identify recognition and profitability, handing HSF an expanded foothold within the States.

However Kramer Levin isn’t well-known on this aspect of the Atlantic. This doesn’t imply it’s small – its 2023 income was a good $435.22m, in response to information from AmLaw – related in turnover phrases to UK high 30 companies corresponding to Macfarlanes and DAC Beachcroft. That is simply one other indicator of the sheer measurement of the US market, the place Kramer sits simply exterior the highest 100 companies by income.

With that in thoughts, right here’s a fast Kramer Levin explainer to get much less acquainted observers up to the mark.

Historical past

Kramer Levin, full identify Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, was based in 1968 in New York Metropolis, the place it’s nonetheless headquartered. It first established a global presence in 1999 when it acquired legacy Rogers & Wells’ Paris workplace, which spun off forward of that agency’s 2000 merger with Clifford Likelihood – though it has been confirmed that the US agency’s Paris workplace will break up off forward of the mixture.

It opened in Silicon Valley in 2011 and in Washington DC in 2022, the latter by way of a mixture with disputes boutique Robbins Russell.

Key personnel

Identify
Place

Paul Schoeman
firmwide co-managing accomplice

Howard Spilko
firmwide co-managing accomplice

Paul Andre
Silicon Valley workplace managing accomplice

Gary Orseck
Washington DC workplace co-managing accomplice

Jennifer Windom
Washington DC workplace co-managing accomplice

Dana Anagnostou
Paris workplace co-managing accomplice

Sébastien Pontillo
Paris workplace co-managing accomplice

Key metrics

Yr
Income
YOY change
PEP
YOY change

2018
$423m
9.3%
$2.33m
8.3%

2019
$398m
-5.9%
$2.16m
-7.2%

2020
$390m
-2%
$2.30m
6.3%

2021
$449m
15.1%
$2.79m
21.3%

2022
$421.44m
-6.1%
$2.38m
-14.7%

2023
$435.22m
3.3%
$2.41m
1.3%

Kramer Levin has the upper PEP and decrease revenues typical of a US-focused agency. What is probably most notable is the scale of its 2021 spikes to each metrics. Neither is out of line with the International 100 common charges for 2021-22 – 15% income progress and 19% PEP.

However Kramer Levin skilled a harsher fall than the typical agency in 2022, when our International 100 overview reported common income up 1% and common PEP down 3%.

Metric
Change 2018-23

Income
2.9%

PEP
3.4%

Kramer Levin’s five-year progress metrics are likewise properly under each the bar set by its bigger rivals (this yr’s International 100 reported common five-year income progress of 40%) and by HSF, which grew income by 26.8% and PEP by 29.9% within the 5 years as much as 2023-24.

Authorized 500 rankings

Kramer Levin has strong illustration within the core US transactional rankings, with a tier 3 rating for personal fairness buyouts as much as $500m and tier 2 in sub-$500m M&A, the place co-managing accomplice Spilko is a number one lawyer.

On the contentious aspect, the agency is ranked tier 2 in white-collar legal defence: recommendation to people and tier 4 in recommendation to corporates, with tier 3 rankings typically business disputes and appellate work earlier than each courts of attraction and supreme courts, with Supreme Court docket and appellate litigation apply head Roy Englert ranked within the Authorized 500’s Corridor of Fame.

The agency’s strongest rankings, nonetheless, are in immigration, promoting and advertising litigation, land use and zoning, and restructuring, the place it’s recognised in tier 1 for each company and municipal restructurings.

In keeping with one HSF accomplice, probably the most carefully linked apply areas are restructuring, chapter, and insolvency, whereas others out there level to synergies in litigation and worldwide arbitration.

There is no such thing as a overlap between Kramer Levin’s and HSF’s US rankings – HSF, which has a 17-partner workplace in New York, is recognised in tier 2 for shopper product class motion defence and in tier 4 for worldwide arbitration.

In France, against this, every of the 2 companies is ranked within the six apply areas (listed under), crossover which is prone to have been an element behind the choice for the France workplace to spin off forward of the mixture.

Mergers & acquisitions
EU, competitors and distribution
Banking and finance: transactional work
Banking and finance: financial institution regulatory
Dispute decision: business litigation
Dispute decision: inventory market litigation

Kramer Levin’s two highest rankings in France are its tier 2 positions in financial institution regulatory, the place Hugues Bouchetemble is a number one accomplice, and enterprise capital.

The 2 companies additionally share a number of key purchasers. Most notable amongst these are Meta, which Kramer has represented in litigation together with a victory in a novel stockholder lawsuit this April, and which HSF acts for within the ongoing Gormsen v Meta case earlier than the CAT, and BlackRock, a key company consumer of Kramer Levin’s that HSF has additionally dealt with work for, in addition to a lot of different main monetary companies companies.

alexander.ryan@legalbusiness.co.uk