Hogan Lovells corporate partners exit for Jones Day ahead of Australian closure

Charles Bogle and James Wood move over in Sydney as Hogan Lovells prepares to shutter sole Australian office

Charles Bogle (l) and James Wood Credit: Jones Day

Jones Day has hired a pair of corporate partners in Sydney from Hogan Lovells as the latter prepares to shutter its office in the city. 

Charles Bogle and James Wood have joined the 2,400 lawyer firm following Hogan Lovells’ announcement last September that it would shutter its bases in Sydney, Warsaw and Johannesburg and lay off the offices’ roughly 120 lawyers and support staff in order to focus on growth in “strategic markets”. The Sydney closure will leave the firm without a physical base in Australia.  

Both Bogle and Wood had joined Hogan Lovells in 2019 from leading Australian firm Gilbert + Tobin, where Bogle had been a partner and Wood was a senior lawyer. 

Christopher Lovrien, partner-in-charge of Jones Day’s Australia region, which includes offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, pointed to the duo’s experience advising corporate and financial clients in Australia and on cross-border deals across the world.

“We continue to grow our transactional capabilities in Australia as part of the strategic plan we implemented last year, and we believe our clients will be excited to work with Charles and James,” Lovrien added. 

Bogle advises on M&A transactions, with a focus on working with financial investors, including private equity funds, infrastructure investors and direct investments for super funds. At Hogan Lovells he advised Australian superannuation fund Aware Super in a number of infrastructure investments, including its $3.4bn bid for telecoms company Vocus in 2021.

Meantime Wood advises private capital participants on private equity and funds transactions, and counsels private equity houses and financial institutions on funds-related matters. He has particular experience in dealing with international fundraising, having worked as an investment funds specialist in London and advised on the establishment of some of the largest private equity funds globally including EQT, Apax Partners and CVC Capital Partners. 

The duo’s arrival at Jones Day follows the firm boosting its Sydney bench last year with the hire of leveraged finance partner Alastair Gourlay and tax partner John Walker from Baker McKenzie. The firm also relocated senior financial markets partner Lewis Grimm to its Melbourne office from London last August. 

Bogle and Wood bring the firm’s Australian corporate practice to 16 lawyers including eight partners, according to its website. The team has been involved in a number of significant recent transactions, including advising Peabody Energy in the pending acquisition of four Australian metallurgical coal mines from Anglo American for a cash consideration of up to $3.8bn. The team also assisted Australian retailer Woolworths Group to acquire key software from its vendor, Takeoff Technologies, through Takeoff’s US chapter 11 bankruptcy process.

Meantime the closure of Hogan Lovells’ Sydney office follows the firm shutting its base in Perth in 2022. The firm’s website still lists 16 lawyers in Sydney, including Bogle, who will join Jones Day early next month. Banking and finance partner Bryan Paisley also left the office last month to return to Baker McKenzie. 

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