Latham & Watkins has deepend its tech transactions bench in London with the hire of Hg general counsel Samatha McGonigle.
McGonigle has joined the firm's M&A and private equity practice as a partner and brings extensive experience in sponsor-side M&A. She has spent the past two years in the GC role at Hg – a longtime client of Latham's – before which she had a stint as a partner at Paul Hastings and co-founded Farview Equity Partners, a European growth equity firm focused on enterprise technology and fintech investments. She also spent more than a decade at Weil, among other roles.
Tom Evans, global vice chair of Latham’s corporate department, said McGonigle had already worked with the firm on numerous matters while at HG.
“She is an outstanding team player with leadership experience and a wide-ranging practice spanning key growth industries," Evans said. "She will play a major role in the next phase of growth of our practice in London and globally.”
Alex Kelly, global co-chair of Latham’s M&A and PE practice group, added that McGonigle's experience in-house and in private practice "gives her a distinctive commercial perspective on sponsor-side decision-making, governance, risk allocation and transaction execution that will be invaluable to our clients and our team".
Over the past year, Kelly has co-led Latham teams that advised Hg on investments in Canadian workforce management business Payworks and rights management software provider Rightsline, among other work handled by the firm including Hg's partnership with Diamant Software.
McGonigle moves across as the latest in a string of tech-related London hires by Latham. In June, the firm picked up Travers Smith partner Richard Offord, who advises on the commercial, IP and tech aspects of M&A and PE deals, having hired a trio of tech-focused M&A partners from Morrison Foerster in May, led by MoFo’s former London managing partner, Andrew Boyd.
Latham boasts the largest London team of any US firm, with around 530 lawyers, including 140 in its top-tier M&A practice.
The office saw an unprecedented wave of partner exits in 2024 amid a heated lateral market for private equity and finance talent and Latham’s introduction of “super points” to reward top-billing rainmakers. But it has since rebuilt its City ranks with key hires, including a trio of real estate finance partners from A&O Shearman, who joined in January, and private equity partner Ross Allardice, who joined from White & Case last summer.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
