Skadden has promoted a trio of lawyers to partner in its London office as part of a 17-strong global round, marking a renewed focus on organic growth in the City, with promotions up by two from the previous year. 

Two of the newly promoted London partners, Ani Kusheva and Steven Hannah, belong to the firm’s corporate practice, following on from the top New York firm’s hiring of a trio of partners from Magic Circle firms over the last two years.

Hannah’s practice focuses on private equity and financial sponsor transactions, while Kusheva covers cross-border M&A, public company takeovers, joint ventures and private equity transactions. The third new London partner, Greg Norman, is an investment management specialist.

The trio will be joining Skadden’s refreshed arsenal of laterally hired London partners, including M&A heavyweight Bruce Embley, who joined from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer last September, restructuring partner Peter Newman, who joined from Milbank in February, and corporate duo George Knighton and Simon Toms, who joined from Allen & Overy in September 2019. 

New York led this year’s promotional round with six partners being made up across six practice areas, followed by the London’s trio. Washington DC and Chicago both had two partners jump up in rank, which is on par with last year’s tally. 

Meanwhile in Palo Alto, large-scale commercial business litigation specialist Abraham A. Tabaie made the grade, becoming the fourth partner in the firm’s 14-strong West Coast litigation team. 

Skadden also elevated Shanghai corporate lawyer Yuting Wu, who notably advised Chinese social media giant ByteDance on its acquisition of Musical.ly (now TikTok) and private equity financings. 

Six of the lawyers joining the partnership are women, down by two from the previous year. The number of promoted female partners is still higher than those in 2019 and 2018, which saw 5 and 3 associates move up the ranks, respectively. 

The promotional round skipped over Skadden’s continental European locations for the second year in a row, with the remaining new additions coming from the firm’s Boston and Wilmington offices. 

Skadden was in third place behind White & Case and Latham & Watkins in Refintiv’s Q1 global M&A ranking, advising on 77 deals worth $158bn.

Last October, Latham & Watkins announced the promotion of seven associates on mainland Europe, up from just two the previous year, among a total of 33 new partners who took up their new roles in January. There was a corresponding dip in the number of London promotions from five to three.

Click here to read the full list of new partners.