Taylor Wessing has added to its finance practice in London with the hire of Elisabeth Gaunt from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Gaunt, a partner in Orrick's City banking and finance department, acts on transactions in industries including telecoms, energy and transport. She was previously also a partner at legacy Denton Wilde Sapte and an associate at Clifford Chance, where she spent four years in the firm's Hong Kong office.

She has recently acted on a number of Africa-related transactions, including advising a Rwanda subsidiary of Millicom International Cellular in relation to a multi-tranche financing, as well as advising MIC Tanzania in relation to the sale of telecom towers.

Elsewhere, she also recently advised Deutsche Bank in relation to a VAT receivables financing facility for Jaguar.

Her move marks the second City partner hire for Taylor Wessing in the new year, after the firm recently announced a partner hire for its data protection team, which is set to be joined by Speechly Bircham's Vinod Bange.

Orrick has recently been bulking up in London, making a number of lateral hires towards the end of last year. These included commercial litigation partners Simon Willis and Matthew Lawson from Mayer Brown, Norton Rose corporate partner Anthony Riley and an in-house duo from Liquid Capital.