Sidley Austin has officially unveiled its hire of Latham & Watkins’ London finance co-chair, Tania Bedi, the eighth partner the firm has hired from Latham this year in the City. 

Bedi has joined the firm’s global finance practice as a partner after just under three years at Latham, having earlier practised at Ropes & Gray before taking a career break to relocate overseas and spend time with her young family. 

Her hire follows Sidley tapping Latham for a five-partner leveraged finance team led by Jayanthi Sadanandan and Sam Hamilton in August, and then recruiting debt capital markets partners Scott Colwell and Patrick Kwak last month. 

The firm has been focused on growing its London bench, saying it had doubled the lawyer headcount of its London finance practice in the last three months. Earlier this week it also recruited CMS’s TMT head, Clive Gringras, in London and now has around 50 partners based there, according to its website. 

For her part, Bedi focuses on leveraged buyouts, acquisition finance, telecom finance, bridge-to-bond financing, general banking and restructuring transactions, Sidley said in a statement. 

Her clients have included Liberty Global and UPC on the borrower side, while on the sponsor side she has acted for TPG on matters including the €1.2bn secondary buyout acquisition of Ontex from Candover Partners, as well as Goldman Sachs European Special Situations Group in connection with a number of investments. 

Tom Thesing, managing partner of Sidley’s London office, said Bedi’s experience in complex and high-value finance transactions “make her a highly regarded lawyer in the leveraged and complex finance space for sponsors and other clients”.

“Tania is another significant partner addition as we continue to build out our capabilities in London given its importance as a key financial hub for cross-border transactions for our clients,” Thesing added. 

A Latham spokesperson commented: “We wish Tania all the best for the future.”

Latham has lost 13 partners to rivals this year, an unusually high number for a market-leading practice that boasts the largest London office among US firms by both lawyer headcount and revenue.

However, the firm has also recruited senior talent in London this year, adding six partners including lender-side leveraged finance trio Jonathan Brownson, Joydeep Choudhuri and Prue Criddle in July from Cahill Gordon & Reindel.