Hogan Lovells equity capital markets (ECM) head Richard Brown has resigned from the firm to join Latham & Watkins.

Brown's hire was confirmed through a partner vote at Latham last night (31 January) with his start date yet to be announced.

He joined legacy Lovells as a partner in 2003 from Goldman Sachs, where he was an executive director in the investment bank's transaction management group. Prior to joining Goldman in 2000, Brown worked at Linklaters.

High profile mandates in recent years have seen Brown advise on the €2.3bn (£1.9bn) restructuring of Straumur, one of the raft of Icelandic banks taken into government hands as a result of the country's financial crisis.

Other clients include Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and SABMiller, with Brown advising the brewer on a €1bn (£859m) bond issue in 2009 intended to raise cash and repay debt.

His hire takes Latham's London capital markets practice to 13 partners, eight of which cover ECM.

Latham London head Nick Cline said: "Strategic hires into our English corporate group represent a key part of our growth plans and Richard's excellent reputation as a leading equity capital markets lawyer in the City makes this a very important hire for us. We expect to make further significant hires into our London office in the future."

News of Brown's departure comes after Hogan Lovells finance partner Mark Donald announced his departure last week to join the City arm of Weil Gotshal & Manges.

The UK top 10 firm also lost five energy partners in its Washington DC office to DLA Piper earlier this year, including global energy co-chief Kevin Lipson.