For a firm supposedly underweight on corporate, CC has been highly visible in 2012. Georgina Stanley reports

Clifford Chance's (CC's) public M&A practice hasn't always had the easiest of rides. Living in the shadow of the firm's private equity and finance teams and losing its best known partner, Adam Signy, to Simpson Thacher & Bartlett a few years back, the practice has frequently come in for more criticism than praise.

But even the harshest critic would find it hard to dispute that, at a time when M&A activity remains in the doldrums, the firm has managed to secure an impressive run of roles on some of the most high-profile deals of the year.

Mandates since April have seen the firm advise on Watson Pharmaceuticals' €4.25bn (£3.5bn) acquisition of Actavis; Pfizer's $11.9bn (£7.6bn) sale of its baby food business to Nestle, Temasek's $2.3bn (£1.47bn) acquisition of a share in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Royal Dutch Shell's £1.2bn bid for Cove Energy and GDF Suez's £6.4bn offer for the remaining 30% in CC client International Power that it did not already own.

Go back slightly further in 2012 and the firm scored one of its first lead corporate roles for Royal Bank of Scotland, when it advised on the sale of RBS Aviation Capital for $7.3bn (£4.67bn) and also acted on its largest deal over the last three years, according to data supplied by Mergermarket – Glencore's merger with Xstrata.

And all of this is on top of the private equity mandates the firm is traditionally associated with, such as Permira's planned disposal of its Iglo frozen foods business for as much as €3bn (£2.4bn) and its disposal of video software company NDS Group to Cisco Systems for $5bn (£3.2bn).

Not bad going for a firm that was often, until fairly recently, written off by rivals as the magic circle's sick man.

UK corporate head Simon Tinkler comments: "There hasn't been a huge uptick of M&A globally but our share has improved and that's in part down to our realisation a few years ago that we had to focus on international clients. We worked with 226 of the global 500 in the corporate practice over the last year."

The tangible result of the strategy is that corporate revenues in London were up 3% in 2011-12 compared with a 10% increase globally, with profitability also increasing, despite the growing pressure on fees and recovery rates.

Indeed in April, London revenues were up 30% compared with the same month the previous year and, while that's coming off a low base, there is no denying it is a significant improvement in what remains a shaky transactional market.

Tinkler also points to the firm's decision to beef up its sector focus in 2009, when it decided to refocus around 13 key sectors including investment management, energy & infrastructure and banks and financial institutions as playing a role in the firm's success, as well as its decision to target banking relationships as corporate clients in their own right.

However, it isn't all good news. Rivals argue that, while the firm has made ground steadying what looked a few years ago to be a very unsettled ship, there remain issues.

Most notably, following the departure of Signy, global corporate head Matthew Layton's move into management and the relocation of Guy Norman to Dubai the firm lacks enough first division rainmakers among its 41-strong City corporate partnership.

Data from Mergermarket shows David Pudge to have advised on the highest value of corporate transactions over the last three years, with roles on six deals worth €38.1bn (£30.9bn), including mandates so far this year such as the RBS aviation sale, Man Group's acquisition of FRM Holdings and Santander's sale of its stake in Thames Water to the China Investment Corporation.

But while individuals like Pudge, David Pearson, Patrick Sarch, and David Lewis are all well-regarded by those outside the firm, critics suggest that the firm remains light of business winners – a situation compounded by the increased focus on institutional clients.

As one former partner comments: "They have got lots of good partners but not the rainmakers and you need to have both. The old BD team have gone and there aren't enough people to fill the gaps. They still have a very large practice and need a lot of dealflow to feed all those mouths."

Closer inspection of the firm's mandates too suggests there is more ground to be made securing the lead advisory roles.

The role for Pfizer, for example, saw CC advise on competition rather than mainstream corporate – still an impressive mandate given the firm has only advised the company for a few years, but clearly not the lead. Similarly, its position on Glencore saw the firm advising the banks rather than either company.

As one rival comments: "They've stabilised a bit from where they were a few years ago but you have to have a close look at the mandates and they still tend to get a lot of bank roles which, unless you're talking about a really big IPO, don't pay as much."

Tinkler though remains upbeat, pointing to the number of Chambers'-rated UK individuals in CC's corporate practice and similar upward movement at rivals such as Linklaters and Freshfields as arguments against the criticism.

He concludes: "Looking at this year there's a reasonable chance of an M&A slowdown. But even if the European markets come to a complete standstill the uptick in the US and continued Asia growth will give us reasonable stability. We're pretty comfortable with the direction we're going."

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