In a historic merger, CMS UK, Nabarro and Olswang have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a proposal to combine, creating a new City powerhouse that will become the world’s sixth largest law firm by lawyer headcount and sixth largest in the UK by revenue.
The merger, which is due to complete on 1 May 2017, will be the largest merger ever in the UK legal services market, as part of which the Nabarro and Olswang name will disappear in its day-to-day operations. The new firm will trade as CMS, although the name of the UK LLP will be CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP. It will have combined revenues of circa £450m in the UK and well in excess of €1.2bn globally.
The new global sector law firm, which will serve 36 countries across 65 offices and have 4,500 lawyers, will be divided across six sectors: energy; financial services; infrastructure and project; life sciences and healthcare; real estate; and technology, media & telecommunications.
The combined firm, which has yet to announce its senior management roles, will bring together Nabarro’s newly-appointed IT director Richard Sharpe, who came in from Cushman & Wakefield in August 2016 to replace Andrew Powell; Stuart Walters, Olswang’s global IT director who joined in October 2014 from Taylor Wessing; and CMS Cameron McKenna’s head of IT Razvan Cretu, who has been at CMS in 2006, starting out as an IT manager.
Stephen Millar, managing partner for CMS UK said: “The combination of CMS, Nabarro and Olswang presents a unique opportunity for us to create a new City of London and UK powerhouse, building on CMS’ deep City heritage and impressive international footprint. The close match in culture and values, supported by the mutual respect of the leadership teams for the combining firms, and their extraordinary market expertise were key aspects in the creation of this new firm and we look forward to welcoming our new partners next year.”
