Financial institutions, including insurers, are at the heart of our practice. We have a long track record of advising insurers and other financial services companies on M&A globally and combine cutting edge insurance expertise with one of the premier corporate/M&A practices.

2007 was an outstanding year for both our Financial Institutions and Insurance Group and our M&A team generally. We were ranked:

• No. 1 for global financial industry M&A (Bloomberg 2007 league tables)
• No. 1 for European M&A (counsel to principals) by volume of deals (USD65 billion) (Bloomberg 2007 league tables)

We regularly advise leading insurers on their strategic M&A across Europe and on all kinds of agreements for the distribution of insurance products, including AEGON, Aviva, Fortis, Hiscox, Munich Re and Swiss Re.

The number and scale of the transactions on which we work on mean that we are well known in the insurance and wider financial services market and have played a leading role in the evolution of market practice for transactions of this kind.

We advise insurance and reinsurance clients on insurance sector M&A transactions, and on structural reorganisations, including the divestment and purchase of life operations and policy portfolio transfers via schemes of arrangement. Our London team is regularly involved in arrangements for the purchase of large books of life policies in run-off, including the regulatory and asset management aspects. The group has also recently advised on precedent-setting pension scheme liability transfer transactions.