Law giant’s 3-way merger

A top 10 international law firm which will have its largest base in London is set to be established under a complicated three-way merger announced late last night.

Anglo-American legal outfit SNR Denton, Paris-based Salans and Canada’s Fraser Milner Casgrain will formally present the plans to create a £1 billion 2,500-lawyer firm to partners next Tuesday. They will then vote on the deal at the end of the month and, if agreed, the merger will go through in the first quarter of 2013.

The structure of the deal will see the enlarged group run without formal headquarters, though there will be four main bases: London, New York, Paris and Toronto. But the new chief executive, SNR Denton’s Elliott Portnoy, and chairman Joe Andrew will be based in the Big Apple.

The firms claim that they will be particularly strong in the energy, insurance and real estate markets. They will have 79 offices in over 50 countries from North America to east Asia.

The merged group will be the seventh biggest in the world by number of lawyers and other professionals working there. SNR Denton itself was formed out of a merger of the UK’s Denton Wilde Sapte and the US’s Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in 2010.

The legal market is undergoing a period of consolidation. Herbert Smith, the 130-year-old City law firm, recently merged with Australian legal group Freehills, while Linklaters, the Magic Circle group, has signed an alliance Down Under.