Clifford Chance corporate star and banking co-head Patrick Sarch is set to leave the magic circle firm for White & Case, The Lawyer can reveal.
He is expected to join White & Case as one of its most senior M&A lawyers and could be taking on a leadership position within the practice.
Sarch is understood to have resigned from the magic circle firm today (13 October) and has been voted in at his new firm.
Sarch has worked on multiple billion-pound takeovers for Clifford Chance, including AB InBev’s £79bn acquisition of SABMiller, Sainsburys’ £1.4bn takeover of Home Retail Group and Kraft’s £11.5bn takeover of Cadbury.
He is also the firm’s client relationship partner for Barclays.
He has been a partner at Clifford Chance since 2001 and previously worked at Norton Rose Fulbright.
Exits are still rare at Clifford Chance. The last exit was competition partner Alastair Mordaunt who left for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer at the start of this year. EU public policy head and competition partner Oliver Bretz also left at the end of 2014 to set up Euclid Law.
During 2013/14, Latham & Watkins hired a Clifford Chance trio to its corporate and private equity team – namely David Walker, Tom Evans and Kem Ihenacho.
White & Case has been on a hiring spree in the City this year, recruiting Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer banking partner Jeffrey Rubinoff, Ashurst partners Jonathan Parry and Mark Clarke, as well as Hogan Lovells corporate partner Guy Potel.
The appointments at White & Case are in line with the US firm’s 2020 strategy, in which it aims to grow in London and develop its capital markets and M&A offering.
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