Corporate dealmakers at the Birmingham office of law firm DLA Piper are looking to use the current tough times as a springboard into a 2010 turnaround.

After a highly successful 2008, but, like everyone else, finding the current climate taxing, they are aiming to come out all guns blazing in 12 months time.

Conditions in the UK, it admits, are currently “challenging to desperate” but remains optimistic.
Russell Orme, partner and head of corporate in Birmingham, said: “Despite excellent results for 2008 we were seeing the same trend experienced by the corporate finance community in the second half of last year.

“Significant numbers of private equity transactions were falling over due to illiquidity and the reducing hold levels by the banks.

“Equally, with fewer institutional buyers around, a number of significant exits were put back to between the second half of this year and the first six months of next.”

The overall reduction in the volume of deals was the big issue.

He went on: “We are seeing a significantly reduced pipeline, quantitively and qualitatively.

“A number of our national and international corporates remain active, albeit they are cautious regarding pricing deals and are anxious when it comes to investing in other international markets, which may not be presently experiencing the same desperate conditions as the UK but, some fear, could be only a matter of time.

“However, due to the diversity of our offering and our internationalisation we are able to counterbalance the effect of the economic conditions relative to corporate more than most of our competition and presently we believe it is a great opportunity for us to position ourselves for the upturn in the economy – which realistically may not be until the first or second half of 2010. We have good reasons to be positive - we have a great team, fantastic propositions and enough character in the team to create exciting opportunities”

Last year the Birmingham office corporate department bucked the economic downturn for as long as it could, maintaining record fee income levels achieved in the very buoyant 2007 market, a performance described by Mr Orme as “exceptional”.

The Birmingham corporate team was involved in more than 75 deals, with an aggregate value in excess of £2 billion.
2008 highlights included acting for:
Synergy Health on its £367 million move to the Official List.
HCL Technologies on its £440 million contested takeover of Axon Group.
EAG Ltd on its £85 million takeover by EAG Inc.
Cooper Controls (UK) on its £144 million recommended takeover of the MTL Instruments Group.
Barclays Ventures on the 100 million euro buyout and acquisition of the European-wide Fila brand rights and businesses.
China Eastsea Business Software on its £17 million admission to AIM.
QA-IQ on the £10 million hostile acquisition of Xpertise Group.

Mr Orme continued: “We achieved continued expansion of our international capability through increasing numbers of cross border transactions.

“The nature and scale of our international deals reinforces our leading reputation in handling complex international transactions.”
The corporate department in Birmingham has been ranked in the top tier by both Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 in 2008.