Dentons. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Dentons has continued its hiring spree in Europe, recruiting Loredana Chitu from Allen & Overy as a partner in its office in Bucharest, Romania.

She will establish Dentons' capital markets offering in Romania, the firm said.

Chitu practice focuses on debt and equity markets and mergers and acquisitions transactions. She advised on the initial public offering of Electrica, to date the largest IPO on the Romanian market. She also has advised banks on debt issuance in Romania.

Before working at Allen & Overy, Chitu worked for Clifford Chance in Bucharest.

"Working as a partner in the world's largest law firm, alongside many reputed capital markets lawyers from international offices, is a great opportunity for my career and a natural step in my development as a lawyer," Chitu said in an email.

Loredana Chitu

She said over the last two years there had been a downturn in the Romanian IPO market, after a series of important deals, such as Romgaz in 2013, Electrica in 2014 and the public offering of privately owned companies such as MedLife, Digi Communications, Sphera Franchise Group and Purcari Wineries from the end of 2016.

But there are new opportunities emerging following legislative changes to pension funds, she said.

"These changes, combined with Romania's recent promotion from frontier market status to emerging market status by FTSE Russell, and the anticipated privatisation of Hidroelectrica, are excellent signals for both issuers and investors and should bring about a boost of activity in 2020-2021," she said.

Dentons also has promoted Joyce Zijlstra to partner in the firms Amsterdam office. She will focus on Denton's indirect tax services in the Netherlands. Zijlstra has been a consultant to Dentons' tax team since January 2018.

The firm has been actively adding partners in its European offices. In September it hired Soo-Youn Kim as a partner to head its Europe South Korea desk, based in the firm's Milan office. In the first half of the year, it recruited two partners in its Milan office: Michael Bosco to open a U.S.-Italy cross-border practice and Matteo Vizzardi to lead the firm's white-collar crime team in Italy.