Sidley Austin is strengthening its City corporate practice with the hire of Linklaters partner Stephen Blackshaw.

Blackshaw, who has been a partner at Linklaters since 1998, is set to join the US firm next month (5 March).

He launched Linklaters' Amsterdam office in 1999, returning to London in 2003, and has since worked on matters such as JPMorgan's takeover of Cazenove, including both the 2004 joint venture between the pair and the bank's 2009 acquisition of the outstanding 50% share for £1bn.

Other high profile mandates include the 2009 merger of Yorkshire and Chelsea building societies, on which he was the lead partner for Yorkshire.

The trilingual partner, who speaks English, German and Dutch, has a practice covering mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings as well as other corporate work such as restructurings.

Blackshaw's hire comes after Sidley posted a 5.6% rise in global revenues for 2011 to $1.41bn (£887m), while partner profits increased by 9.6% to $1.6m (£1m).

The Chicago firm has around 40 partners in London, with recent moves including the departure of structured finance partner Andrew Bliss to SJ Berwin in November last year and the hire of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher City capital markets partner Dorothee Fischer-Appelt in May last year.

Last month SNR Denton hired Linklaters' banking partner Edward Hickman for its London arm. As Legal Week reported last week, Linklaters managing partner Simon Davies is currently facing his reappointment going to a vote at the annual partner meeting in April, after he failed to secure enough support during an electronic vote.

In an unusual move thought to be related to the City giant's sweeping partnership restructuring, Davies failed to secure a high enough margin of support in an electronic vote for re-election for a second term as managing partner, despite being the only candidate put forward.