Weil, Gotshal & Manges has hired a private equity partner from Latham & Watkin's Hong Kong base.

Tim Gardner joined Latham in 2006. Prior to joining Latham, he worked as an investment banking associate and then vice president in the financial institutions group of Goldman Sachs in New York, where he specialised in M&A.

Gardner counts Carlyle Group, Darby Private Equity, FIL Limited and FountainVest Partners among his clients.

Last September, he led a team at Latham that acted for Chinese private equity investor FountainVest Partners on its $800m purchase of a controlling stake in US auto supplier Key Safety Systems Inc.

With the addition of Gardner, Weil now has 6 private equity partners in Hong Kong and 8 in Asia.

Weil executive partner Barry Wolf said Gardner would be a "great addition" to the firm's "top-ranked global private equity practice".

The firm said it was not currently working on any other hires for the practice.