April 6 (Reuters) – British law firm Allen & Overy (A&O) is
in merger talks with U.S. firm O’Melveny & Myers, which would
create a business with combined revenue of 2 billion pounds
($2.82 billion) and total lawyer count of around 3,000, UK’s
Legal Week reported on Friday. (https://bit.ly/2GESYiB)
The talks have been contained to only a small number of
senior figures, although A&O partners in January were told the
firm was in discussions with several U.S. firms about a
potential merger, the report added.
“… we have said for several years that we are open to
considering a merger with the right partner in the U.S.,” an
Allen & Overy spokesman told Reuters in an emailed statement.
He declined to comment on merger talks with O’Melveny &
Myers.
A spokesman for O’Melveny & Myers said they “… have no
plans to merge and never have.”
The talks are being led on the A&O side by senior partner
Wim Dejonghe and managing partner Andrew Ballheimer, who
prioritised the need for U.S. expansion when running for their
roles in 2016, the legal journal report added.
($1 = 0.7097 pounds)
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Philip George and Rama Venkat
Raman in Bengaluru; editing by David Evans)
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