Slaughter and May is set to relocate another City partner to Hong Kong as the firm continues to grow its capacity in the region.

Corporate partner Peter Brien will move to Slaughters' Hong Kong office in August this year, taking the firm's total number of partners on the ground to eight.

His relocation comes after the magic circle firm sent London corporate partner David Watkins to its Hong Kong base last summer, with corporate partner Padraig Cronin returning to the City after five years in the Asian office.

The moves come as part of a wider investment from the firm in Asia over the last year, with Slaughters tightening its relationships with local outfits in the region through increased associate secondments and sending lawyers to Korea for the first time.

Slaughters senior partner Chris Saul commented: "Asia continues to be a growth market for us and we have been fortunate to work on some significant deals in the region; it therefore makes sense for us to send further resource to our Hong Kong office."

The news comes amid a broader push from the magic circle to redeploy resources to Asia, with Linklaters corporate heavyweight Matthew Middleditch relocating to the firm's Hong Kong office in January this year. Amsterdam partner Peter Goes recently joined the firm's Beijing office , while Madrid partner Miles Curley will transfer to Singapore this summer.

Meanwhile, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is set to relocate global arbitration co-head Lucy Reed from New York to Hong Kong in May this year, with global investigations co-head Geoff Nicholas set to transfer from London to the office in the summer.