Allen & Overy (A&O) has bagged its second private equity partner from Ashurst in the past six months with the hire of Karan Dinamani.

Dinamani is following in the footsteps of Ashurst's former head of corporate Stephen Lloyd, who joined the magic circle firm's corporate group as co-head of its private equity practice after resigning in November.

Dinamani was made up as partner in 2013. Last year he took roles on mandates including representing supermarket chain Morrisons' launch of an online grocery service with Ocado and a group of lenders on the £375m refinancing of the Pret A Manger group.

Dinamani has also worked on deals for clients such as Apax, Nordic Capital and Terra Firma and regularly acts on transactions involving infrastructure assets, particularly airports.

His start date is not yet known, but it is understood A&O partners voted him in last week.

A&O London corporate managing partner Richard Browne (pictured) said: "This appointment further strengthens our unified private equity offering spanning the corporate and finance practices.

"It comes at a time of increased levels of activity in the sector. Recently, increasing confidence in the markets has triggered a rise in private equity-backed initial public offerings which we expect to continue."

The transfers of Lloyd and Dinamani mark significant additions to A&O's corporate practice, which has struggled to regain ground in the private equity space since global practice co-head Derek Baird left to join Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in 2012.

Lloyd resigned from Ashurst after ten years as a partner, months after he was appointed joint head of the firm's global corporate, commercial and competition practice in July.

Following Lloyd's departure Ashurst appointed Simon Beddow as co-head of the firm's global corporate, commercial and competition practice, working alongside Sydney-based co-head Phil Breden.

Beddow said: "We are sorry to see Karan leave. Being the youngest of our core team of private equity partners, he was well placed for our plans for the practice over the next decade.

"He is departing at a time when our department is booming, especially with the added traction from our merger, with new PE clients such as Agilitas and with a very strong pipeline of work."