Ashurst + Blake Dawson. It’s a done deal.
The Asian Lawyer has reported the long awaited confirmation of a merger between the U.K.’s Ashurst and Australia’s Blake Dawson.
“The plan, which was approved by votes at both partnerships Friday, also calls for Blake Dawson to adopt the Ashurst brand in Australia as well as in the combined Asia offices. The integration of the Asian offices and the re-branding of Blake Dawson are scheduled to take effect March 2012, with a vote on a full merger envisioned roughly two years after that.
If the merger took place today, it would give the combined firm more than 1,700 lawyers and revenue of around $850 million.
Ashurst Asia head Geoffrey Green, a former firmwide senior partner, will chair the merged Asia practice, which will number around 150 lawyers to start. The 900-lawyer British firm currently has around 75 lawyers in Asia with roughly 30 lawyers apiece in Hong Kong and Singapore, plus a smaller office in Tokyo. Blake Dawson will also contribute around 75 lawyers to the combined practice, drawing from offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, New Guinea, and Indonesia. There Australia-based Blake Dawson partners whose practices are mainly focused on Asia will also be part of the Ashurst Asia group.
Leaders at both firms say they saw the deal as a way to ramp up their presence in Asia relatively quickly.”
No surprise there, since we’ve spent the week hammering home just how much the Asian market means to law firms that need to grow.
“Green says Ashurst sees the deal as a chance to make up ground with Magic Circle firms that have many more lawyers on the ground in Asia. ‘They have a significant resource base that we don’t,’ he says. ‘It would be difficult for us to build that organically. We needed to do something that increased the pace of our growth.’
Blake Dawson managing partner John Carrington says the tie-up brings similar benefits to his firm. “It provides us with a level of critical mass in the region that would have been hard to achieve otherwise.”
The deal between Ashurst and Blake Dawson is the latest in a string of deals between British and Australian firms.Norton Rose kicked off the trend in 2009 with the announcement of a combination with Deacons Australia. Earlier this year, Clifford Chance acquired two small firms in Sydney and Perth, and DLA Piper fully merged with Australian alliance partner DLA Phillips Fox.
But Blake Dawson is the largest and most prominent Australian firm to date to engage in an international tie-up. One of Australia’s Big Six firms along with Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Allens Arthur Robinson, Minter Ellison, Clayton Utz andFreehills, Blake Dawson has 828 lawyers. The imminent disappearance of its name from the Aussie legal scene is bound to prompt further soul-searching about international strategy from the remaining five unaligned firms.
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“No one expects this to be the last deal involving firms in Australia. Mallesons and King & Wood have confirmed talking about an alliance that could likewise see their Asia practices merge. A bevy of other U.K. and U.S. firms are also rumored to be eyeing Australia.”
Again, no surprise. Saturated legal markets and slow economies at home mean firm’s have no choice but to push harder into emerging markets or risk missing out on the growing need for legal services in Asia, especially China.
To find out how you can capitalize on the growing demand for expat lawyers in Asia, check out what’s on offer at Law Alliance.
