Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas ropes in 49 members from rival law firm IndusLaw

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) has roped in 49 members from rival law firm IndusLaw in a bid to cement its leadership position in the capital market practice space. The team will be led by partner Manan Lahoty, with eight more partners joining across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru.

Lahoty was a partner at IndusLaw since 2019 and earlier spent close to a decade at Luthra & Luthra.

Such large movements between law firms are not uncommon, but this is pegged as the biggest move this year. The development comes amid a boom in equity capital raising this year.

The capital mobilised via equity capital market (ECM) activity jumped 2.5 times to $29.5 billion—the highest-ever semi-annual total in terms of proceeds. ECM comprises initial public offerings (IPO), follow-on offerings, such as block deals, follow-on public offerings (FPOs) and qualified institutional placements (QIPs).

Moreover, companies looking to cumulatively mobilise over Rs 1 trillion are waiting for market regulator Sebi’s approval. Industry players said several more companies are currently in the process of filing their offer documents.

Cyril Shroff, managing partner, CAM, said, “We are excited about the significant growth and market leadership that our capital markets practice will assume with this development. Capital markets, one of the four major practices of the firm, will be a significant practice of scale.”

Following the latest hiring, CAM will have a nearly 130-strong capital markets team, one of the largest in the industry.

Manan Lahoty, who will soon head the capital markets practice at CAM, said, “The coming together of the top two teams on such a massive scale is unprecedented. This will have a striking impact on the Indian capital markets fraternity—clients as well as lawyers.”