Morgan Stanley is set to name Mark Rawlinson, a long-time corporate partner at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, as its new chairman of UK investment banking in an unusual move to lure a star dealmaker from the legal industry. The appointment will cast Mr Rawlinson, who has been one of London’s leading lawyers on mergers and acquisitions in recent years, in a banking role for the first time in his more than three-decade long career. Unlike the US market, where several top bankers have had experience working at elite law firms, it is rare for an established UK lawyer to jump into investment banking. The appointment is set to be announced on Monday, according to people briefed on the move, who added that Mr Rawlinson would begin at the bank in October and continue to be based in London. He will report to Franck Petitgas, Morgan Stanley’s global co-head of investment banking. Morgan Stanley and Mr Rawlinson declined to comment. Investment banks are finding it increasingly difficult to retain their most seasoned and best-known dealmakers at the pinnacle of their careers. Some, such as former Morgan Stanley bankers Simon Robey and Michael Zaoui, have quit to launch or join boutique advisory firms where they have more freedom to focus on clients and where they can earn bigger sums on individual deals because of low overheads. Replacing senior bankers can be difficult, especially among a shrinking pool of candidates able to boast decades of experience. For instance, Deutsche Bank searched for months before eventually looking outside the banking industry to hire Thomas Piquemal, former finance director of French utility EDF, as its global head of M&A in May. Mr Rawlinson joined Freshfields in 1982 and has held multiple roles, including the firm’s head of corporate and head of London, in his time at the firm. Over the past two years, Mr Rawlinson has worked on the largest deals in the UK market, including with BG Group, the oil and gas company, on its $52bn sale to Royal Dutch Shell, and AB InBev with its £71bn takeover of rival brewer SABMiller. $307bn Value of deals on which Morgan Stanley has advised this year Thanks to those deals, Freshfields was the only non-US law firm to rank in the top 10 for global M&A market share last year, according to Dealogic data. He is also advising the London Stock Exchange Group on its pending £21bn merger with Germany’s Deutsche Börse. Rob Kindler, Morgan Stanley’s global head of M&A, spent 20 years at US firm Cravath Swaine & Moore before joining the bank in 2000. The US bank sits in second place, behind Goldman Sachs, in league table rankings, having advised on $307bn of deals this year, according Thomson Reuters. Source link

The UK construction industry’s lack of skill in building information modelling has emerged as a key concern for industry professionals. A survey of 300 industry professionals found that while they were concerned about skilled labour shortages in traditional trades, building information modelling (BIM) was a bigger issue for them. The survey was conducted by BRE Academy, the training arm of the Building Research Establishment. Its report said that sustainability and environmental skills as well as trades such as plastering, electrical and plumbing were in short supply across construction. However BIM and management skills, seen as key to future development, were seen as lacking on a wider industry as well as an individual company or organisation basis. The survey also highlighted construction’s image problem, with 91% of respondents saying that people outside the industry have a different perspective of the industry than those within it. A need was identified to establish ‘clear and appealing’ career pathways for young entrants to the industry, with 74% of respondents saying that these should be ‘actively promoted’ and 67% saying that there should be more focus on promoting construction’s hi-tech and digital aspects. In addition the industry should be promoted more to academically minded students as well as those aiming for vocational qualifications, according to the survey respondents.       This article was published on 11 Mar 2016 (last updated on 11 Mar 2016). Source link

Horizon Nuclear Power has revealed the team which will build Wylfa Newydd, its new nuclear plant on Anglesey in Wales. Menter Newydd – meaning New Venture in Welsh – has been given responsibility for the plant’s delivery. The recently formed partnership is made up of Hitachi Nuclear Energy Europe, Bechtel Management Company and JGC Corporation. Horizon is itself owned by the Hitachi group, having been bought by the Japanese conglomerate in 2012 for £700 million. The 2.7GW project will make use of two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR) supplied by one of Hitachi’s subsidiaries. The newly appointed chief executive of Horizon, Duncan Hawthorne, said: “This is an important step in any large, complex infrastructure project and it adds to Wylfa Newydd’s growing momentum. “The depth and breadth of expertise Hitachi Nuclear Energy Europe, Bechtel and JGC bring to the Menter Newydd venture will help us ensure the timely delivery of our project, which will be vital for meeting the UK’s energy gap and boosting the local economy in North Wales for decades to come.” Hitachi’s Malcolm Twist, project director for Menter Newydd, said: “This is a very strong team. All the partners are proven at the highest level, and I’m delighted we’ve established the balance of expertise to safely deliver for Horizon, on-cost and on-schedule. We expect to begin firming up relationships with our main sub-contractors – many of them British – very soon.” Horizon is aiming to start generating power at plant within the first half of the 2020s. It said the UK ABWR design which will be used in the plant remains on track to pass its Generic Design Assessment by the end of 2017. Earlier this week NuGen unveiled the shortlists of two design competions for its new nuclear plant at Moorside in Cumbria. Source link

The tentative agreement for Opec to cut its production is the best news the world’s oil producers have had all year. When ministers from the oil cartel announced in Algiers on Wednesday evening that they had agreed a production target lower than their current output, they signalled they were prepared to make sacrifices to ease the global crude glut, which will help all producers. They also implicitly admitted they might open gaps in world oil markets that others could fill. The details have been put off until the next Opec meeting at the end of November. A “high-level committee” will be appointed to look at how the proposed cut should be shared out between member countries — the question that is always the hardest in any cartel. Even so, there was an immediate reaction in the markets to the news: Brent crude rose by 6 per cent on Wednesday evening to about $49 per barrel. The celebrations will be loudest in the boardrooms of Houston and Oklahoma City. The US shale oil industry has been in retreat for most of the past two years but it has started to turn the corner. Since May the number of rigs drilling for oil in the US has been rising. Companies that had been outspending their cash flows for years have been bringing their finances under control thanks to cost cuts and productivity gains. If oil prices can hang on to their recent gains, American shale producers will be able to accelerate their recovery, putting more rigs back to work and bringing more wells into production. The best US shale wells can deliver acceptable returns even with crude below $20 per barrel, according to Wood Mackenzie, the research company. In the Permian Basin of west Texas there are fields that on average need an oil price of only about $40 per barrel. But the move from $40 to $50 makes a big difference. Chevron, one of the largest US oil groups, said this month that at $40 oil it could drill about 1,300 profitable wells in the Permian region, but at $50 it could drill 4,000 such wells. EOG Resources, a company that was a pioneer of the shale oil revolution, said last month that with oil at $50-$60 per barrel, it could increase its production by 10-20 per cent every year. Not every shale producer is as well-positioned for growth as EOG. US oil production is in decline because of the slowdown in drilling that began in 2014, and it is likely to keep falling into next year. But the higher prices rise, the more American companies will be able to put rigs back to work, and the more likely it is that US production will start to recover. American crude could both take market share from Opec and put a limit on oil price rises by bringing additional supply on to the market. American crude could both take market share from Opec and put a limit on oil price rises That is the central problem for Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader, and the other members of the cartel: the same problem they have faced since US shale oil became a significant force in world markets. In 2014, Opec’s members had a choice. They could cut their production, helping to support prices but losing market share to the US. Or they could let the oil glut grow and prices plunge, in the hope that investment in higher-cost sources of supply, including US shale, would be choked off. For two years, the Saudis have chosen to let prices go, and the results have been painful for Opec’s members. Now, apparently, they are prepared to try a more interventionist policy. But for as long as US shale oil remains viable, the results are unlikely to be much happier for Opec. The writer is the FT’s US energy editor Sample the FT’s top stories for a week You select the topic, we deliver the news. Source link