Why Freshfields stood up to Donald Trump

One scoop to start: Former UK prime minister Lord David Cameron is in talks to join the law firm and lobbyist DLA Piper as a consultant. He would advise it and its leaders on geopolitical risks, though details of the role are not yet finalised.

And another scoop: Microsoft-backed Builder.ai collapsed after an internal investigation found evidence of potentially bogus sales and the company revised down revenues to just a quarter of prior estimates.

The magic circle firm making waves in the US

The British magic circle law firm Freshfields revealed it was serious about a US expansion when it poached star M&A lawyer Ethan Klingsberg from Cleary Gottlieb in 2019.

The move was possible because Freshfields had altered its “lockstep” pay model so it could more easily pay the kinds of salaries top US lawyers expect.

It brought in the kind of clients every corporate law firm wants. Clients such as Google, which Klingsberg brought with him.

Since then, Freshfields has made a major push into the US. These days about a fifth of its partners are based there and it works on megadeals such as Google parent Alphabet’s planned $32bn acquisition of Wiz. 

But the US push has shaken things up for the firm, financially and culturally. 

On the financial side, staff costs have surged and Freshfields lags behind top US firms on profit per equity partner.

The hope is that the US business will one day become as profitable as the wider firm, so that partners in the rest of the world will no longer in effect be subsidising the expensive American project. 

Culturally, the push has forced Freshfields to start reckoning for the first time with where it stands on political issues. 

After the October 7 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel, it joined top American firms in signing a letter to the heads of US law schools about reports of antisemitism on campuses that they recruited from, a move that was not universally popular among staff.

Now, President Donald Trump’s actions against some law firms have led it to set out its stance again. It was the only one of the world’s top-20 law firms by revenue to sign a court filing supporting Perkins Coie, which Trump had targeted with a potentially damaging executive order. The order would suspend security clearances and bar access to government buildings among other things.

The decision to do so was ultimately taken by Georgia Dawson, a litigator and the firm’s senior partner. 

It meant the firm was taking a step that the major firms with which it is trying to compete in the US had decided they should not take. Why? 

DD’s Kaye Wiggins and James Fontanella-Khan and the FT’s Suzi Ring and Stephen Morris have delved into the decision and what the consequences might be. 

Helge Lund’s juggling act at BP and Novo Nordisk

“Likeable and friendly” but “not demanding enough”.

That was how one Novo Nordisk shareholder described Helge Lund, the unassuming ex-McKinsey consultant who’s juggling two of Europe’s biggest corporate dramas at BP and Novo Nordisk.

Lund suffered a bruising defeat last month when a quarter of BP’s shareholders voted against his re-election as chair.

It was the biggest protest against the head of a FTSE 100 board in five years, and all the more humiliating given Lund had already said two weeks earlier that he would step down.

BP has lost ground to rival oil majors and been forced to pivot away from its flagship sustainability drive in the face of an assault by Elliott Management, the headstrong activist investor.

It’s a sector that Lund knows well, having risen to fame as the chief executive of Norway’s Statoil, now Equinor.

Under Bernard Looney, a Lund appointee, BP diversified into renewable energy in a push that had echoes of its earlier “Beyond Petroleum” campaign.

But now, it’s very much “Back to Petroleum”.

Earlier this year, BP reversed course on its green push. It said it would cut expenditure on renewables by 70 per cent and raise oil and gas spending by a fifth.

Nor can Lund look to Novo Nordisk, the weight-loss drug pioneer he chairs that only a year ago might have offered some respite.

Novo’s share price soared more than six-fold from 2018 to 2024, buoyed by the success of its transformational Wegovy weight-loss product. 

Then chief executive Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen became a star as celebrities and ordinary Joes alike pounced on the wonder drug.

But Jørgensen is gone now, ousted as Novo’s share price came hurtling back down to earth and the company lost market share to rivals.

The focus is firmly on Lund, who announced Jørgensen’s departure and is tasked with finding a new leader.

Some investors are unimpressed with his performance, believing he doesn’t question management enough.

“We are worried that he has been distracted by the mess at BP,” a Novo Nordisk shareholder told the FT’s Richard Milne.

“His time is running out.”

Nestlé’s new chief looks back in anger

Nestlé’s new boss isn’t holding back.

Laurent Freixe, who took the top job at the food and drink conglomerate in August, said his predecessor had “weakened the fabric of the organisation” by pursuing new revenue streams.

In an interview with the FT’s Madeleine Speed, Freixe launched a broadside against Mark Schneider, saying the erstwhile chief had weakened Nestlé’s “core”.

Under Schneider, Nestlé went on an acquisition spree. But growth slowed during the latter part of his tenure and he was ousted last year, seven years into the job.

Schneider was only the second outsider to take the job in Nestlé’s history and company insiders said his forthright style clashed with its consensual culture.

Appointing Freixe, who had been passed over earlier, marked a return to the tried and tested for the consumer giant.

The Frenchman is a 40-year company veteran who’s worked for Nestlé in Hungary, Iberia and Latin America.

He says he “knows the organisation intimately” and wants to restore the culture he perceives to have been lost. Freixe has already moved regional heads back to Swiss Nestlé’s headquarters.

Competitors Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser and Danone are selling underperforming brands and switching to higher-margin products.

Freixe, however, wants to retain the company’s scale and shift the focus back to Nestlé’s coffee, petcare and food businesses.

“I don’t see merits in being small, provided you can take advantage of your scale and bring the speed. If you are big and fast and nimble, that’s a winning equation . . . both Goliath and David in one.”

For Freixe’s thoughts on M&A, tariffs, climate change and more, read the full interview here.

Job moves

• Lane42 Investment Partners, the firm launched by ex-Ares partner Scott Graves, has named the team that will lead its initial fund: Rob Ruberton will join from Apollo, while Kaj Vazales and Joe Scheuer were previously at Oaktree Capital, Trevor Winstead joins from Oak Hill Advisors, Damon Fisher joins from Kirkland & Ellis and David Bernfeld was previously at Citadel.

• The Partnership for New York City chief executive Kathryn Wylde will step down next year, The New York Times reports. The non-profit represents more than 300 of New York’s top businesses, law firms and banks.

• Eastspring Investments, the asset management subsidiary of Prudential, has named Rajeev Mittal as its chief executive. Mittal replaces Bill Maldonado, who is retiring.

• The World Travel & Tourism Council has named billionaire cruise line magnate Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio as its chair elect. He replaces Greg O’Hara, the founder of Certares Management.

Smart reads

Novel financing Private equity firms are turning to new sources to fund their takeovers, Lex writes. The recent Skechers buyout is a case in point.

Space race Starlink is winning the race to put satellites into low Earth orbit, the FT reports. Competitors will have to work hard to catch up.

SEC vs FRB The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Fed are diverging drastically on their view of private credit regulation, Alphaville writes.

News round-up

Apple set to expand India supply chain through $1.5bn Foxconn plant (FT)

LVMH’s Bernard Arnault criticises EU efforts to reduce Donald Trump’s tariffs (FT)

Phoenix plots rebirth as Standard Life (FT)

Google faces antitrust investigation over deal for AI-fuelled chatbots (Bloomberg)

US challenges asset managers over antitrust risks in ESG policies (FT)

BYD sells more electric vehicles in Europe than Tesla for first time (FT)

Manchester United shares sink after Europa League defeat (FT)

Antitrust cops say BlackRock, other fund giants may have hurt coal competition (WSJ)