Pinsent Masons has recruited two equity capital market and M&A partners in London from Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP).

Julian Stanier and Gareth Jones will join the firm's corporate finance practice.

Stanier joined BLP in 2012 from Norton Rose Fulbright, where he made partner in 2004.

Jones was promoted to partner at BLP last year. The two partners specialise in advising investment banks, corporate brokers and other intermediaries in London and internationally. They also advise UK and international corporate clients on their corporate finance and public and private M&A requirements.

Pinsents' head of corporate finance Rosalie Chadwick said: "Julian and Gareth will be focusing on building our practice with investment banking and intermediary clients and will have the full support of our corporate finance team in doing so. This is not the end of our expansion and we anticipate making further appointments across the team in the near term."

The pair's departure from BLP leaves the firm with 16 M&A partners in London. BLP corporate head Jonathan Morris said: "We've been building our global corporate capabilities in recent months, with a number of strategic appointments. We're recruiting in the ECM team as we look to expand our mainstream M&A bench, particularly in the tech and corporate insurance spaces."

This year, BLP posted an almost 8% drop in profit per equity partner (PEP) to £630,000, down from £683,000 in 2015-16.

The fall in PEP came despite a 7% hike in revenue during the same period to £272m, up from £254.4m.