Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance hires Aline Cardin as Partner in the Paris M&A team

International law firm Clifford Chance announced today that Aline Cardin, a leading French corporate lawyer, is to join the Firm as a Partner in the Paris office.

Aline Cardin, currently a European Counsel at Shearman & Sterling, specialises in Equity Capital Markets. She combines French and international securities offerings covering IPOs, secondary offerings and institutionalised and private placements with a practice mixing acting for banks and for corporate issuers. She also has a track record in advising on corporate governance.

Yves Wehrli, Managing Partner of Clifford Chance's Paris office commented: "Aline has an excellent understanding of the market and clients and is well-respected in the ECM arena. A few months ago we made the decision to reinforce our highly regarded Corporate practice in Paris. Bringing in Aline, after our recent hire of Mathieu Remy, demonstrates  that we are making good progress. We are very pleased to welcome yet another high quality individual  to the team."

Matthew Layton, Head of the global Corporate Practice at Clifford Chance, added:  “ The first half of 2011 has proven very busy for our Paris M&A team. We are handling some of the most complex work in the French market and we are confident that Aline's  strong connections will be a real asset to our large international client base. ECM remains a strategic priority for our firm and we expect to see increased levels of activity in Capital Markets."

Aline Cardin commented: “Clifford Chance is a strong brand in the legal market and I am thrilled to join a firm with such an excellent global platform and impressive ECM capabilities in other major jurisdictions in Europe."

The M&A group of Clifford Chance Paris comprises 42 fee earners including 8 Partners: Catherine Astor-Veyres, Pierre Gromnicki, Gilles Lebreton, Mathieu Rémy, Dessislava Savova, Thierry Schoen, Laurent Schoenstein and Yves Wehrli.

The hire is the latest in a number of senior appointments by Clifford Chance's global Corporate practice including Steven Fox and Tim Lewis in London, Rob Masella in New York and Claudio Cerabolini in Milan.

Clifford Chance's Corporate practice is ranked number one in Corporate/M&A globally in Chambers Global 2011 and is top of Mergermarket's European M&A rankings for Q1 2011.  

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

1.      Aline Cardin joined Shearman & Sterling in 1993, immediately after university. She  obtained her initial law degree in Normandy (Master I in Business Law in 1990) and got a Master II  and DJCE (International Business Law) in 1991 at the Aix en Provence university.
2.      Her most recent deals include the offering of convertible bonds by Pierre & Vacances with a listing on Euronext Paris  and  the offering of bonds by Bolloré with a listing on Euronext Paris and the public tender offer of Axel Springer AG on SeLoger.com (2011).

3.      Clifford Chance's Paris Corporate group comprises 42 legal advisers, including 8 Partners and 7 Counsel. The group covers all types of complex transactions such as private and public company mergers, acquisitions and disposals, private equity and equity capital market transactions, privatisations, shareholder agreements, joint ventures and cooperation agreements. Recent highlights in 2011 include advising Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Axa Private Equity and Caisse des dépôts du Québec on the acquisition of Spie Group, advising Argan, a listed real estate company, on its 35,000,000 Euro share capital increase.

4.      The team was also active in 2010 on advising Siemens AG on the EUR 850 million contribution of its IT Solutions and Services business to Atos Origin; advising Thai Union, the leading producer and exporter of frozen and canned seafood in Thailand and advising International Power (IP) on the combination of IP and GDF Suez Energy International Business Areas.

5.      Clifford Chance's capital markets practice comprises over 422 partners and lawyers who concentrate on securities transactions and other products sold into the capital markets. The practice is founded on a full-service US and UK securities law capability, complemented by local securities law expertise in each of the key financial centres.

6.      The combination of local knowledge with an international perspective enables us to provide practical, integrated legal advice covering the full spectrum of global capital raising activities including public and private domestic and international offerings of traditional debt and equity securities as well as convertible and other derivative and structured securities.

7.      Clifford Chance is one of the world's leading law firms, helping clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards with local expertise. The Firm has unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across the four key markets of the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, and focuses on the core areas of commercial activity: capital markets; corporate and M&A; finance and banking; real estate; tax; pensions and employment; litigation and dispute resolution. Clifford Chance has 33 offices in 23 countries with some 3,200 legal advisers. The Firm also operates a co-operation agreement with Al-Jadaan &  Partners Law Firm in Saudi Arabia.

8.      Clifford Chance was ranked 'tier one' in more cross-border tables than any other firm in the Chambers Global 2011 Directory. This independent analysis focuses on firms' legal ability, professional conduct, client service, and commercial awareness, and these rankings provide outstanding recognition for the Firm's breadth of expertise and consistency of quality across global markets.