Latham & Watkins has returned to the magic circle for a partner hire for the second time this week, picking up Allen & Overy (A&O) infrastructure partner Conrad Andersen.

News of the hire comes after Legal Week revealed yesterday (August 15) that the US heavyweight had hired Clifford Chance's (CC's) head of infrastructure M&A Brendan Moylan.

Andersen specialises in all aspects of infrastructure and utility financings and acquisitions, and last year co-led the firm's team advising on the £220m acquisition of Leeds Bradford Airport by AMP Capital, the investment arm of Australian wealth manager AMP.

London-based Moylan specialises in domestic and cross-border M&A for private equity clients, with a focus on the infrastructure sector.

Latham London managing partner Jay Sadanandan said: "We see a strategic opportunity to establish a top-tier infrastructure practice in London and Europe, to complement our existing infrastructure M&A, finance, and project finance practices in the US, Asia and the Middle East."

She added: "Brendan and Conrad have developed extremely successful and high-end practices, and they are among a small group of practitioners operating at the very top of the market. Their arrival will add significant weight to our capability in Europe and globally."

Latham has been aggressively recruiting across London and continental Europe in recent months, picking up a number of partners from magic circle firms.

Earlier this summer, it picked up Madrid real estate partner Rafael Molina and London financial regulation partner Carl Fernandes from Linklaters. In March, it boosted its Duesseldorf base with the addition of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer M&A partner Tobias Larisch.

The US firm has hired a number of partners from CC in London in recent years, bringing in global private equity head David Walker in 2013, followed by fellow private equity partner Tom Evans and then PE partner and Africa co-head Kem Ihenacho.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the magic circle firm's global co-head of private equity Oliver Felsenstein and PE partner Burc Hesse left to join Latham in Frankfurt as partners in the corporate department in 2015.

In addition to its magic circle hires, Latham also hired restructuring duo Yen Sum and Jennifer Brennan from US rival Sidley Austin earlier this summer.

And at the start of the year it hired Hogan Lovells' co-head of global financial services litigation Jon Holland, and banking litigation partner Andrea Monks, for its City litigation and trial department.

For CC, Moylan's move represents the second partner exit from the firm's City base in 2018. White-collar crime partner Judith Seddon joined Ropes & Gray in January as co-head of the US firm's London international risk practice.