Wall Street firm Davis Polk has relocated to a new, larger City office at The Whittington Building in the City.
The firm has been quietly growing its London presence with a series of high-profile lateral hires in the past 18 months.
Davis Polk has moved to a new, larger office in London, returning to the site of its first home in the heart of the City.
The move to The Whittington Building takes the firm out of its former building in Aldermanbury Square - soon to be Clifford Chance’s new base - and back to Frederick’s Place, where it first opened in London over 50 years ago in 1972.
It signed for 31,800 sq ft of room last year - more than half of the five-storey development’s available office space.
Bigger picture
The elite New York-headquartered firm has been quietly growing its London presence with a series of high-profile lateral hires in the past 18 months.
It added leveraged finance partner Luke McDougall from Paul Hastings last May, followed by senior private equity dealmaker Gordon Milne from A&O Shearman in August. At the start of this year, the firm launched a European restructuring practice with a two-partner raid on Sidley - adding its US rival's restructuring co-heads Mark Knight and Jifree Cader.
It also moved to set the pace on trainee pay last October, pushing rates to a market-leading £65,000 for first years and £70,000 for second years - a position since matched by Sullivan & Cromwell, Milbank and McDermott. Davis Polk takes on around five trainees in London each year.
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