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James Douglas, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer A high volume of lateral moves took place as the summer drew to a close. WEIL GOTSHAL & MANGES, a firm plagued by defections in recent months, gained an experienced partner in early September in the form of Damian Ridealgh from Ashurst in New York. The M&A and corporate finance partner has a strong background in the UK's financial markets, having worked in London before his move to New York in 2003. HOGAN LOVELLS bolstered its finance practice in New York with the hiring of Lewis Cohen as a partner. Cohen, previously a partner at Clifford Chance, specialises in capital markets transactions. In yet another hire in the banking and finance area, MCGUIREWOODS gained Kay McNab, a Chicago-based partner with Winston & Strawn. McNab advises underwriters and placement agents in domestic and cross-border secured and unsecured loan transactions and has extensive experience working with venture capital firms.

Stephen Crosswell, Baker & McKenzie Anna-Marie Slot, Ashurst In Hong Kong we have seen early signs of horse trading as KIRKLAND & ELLIS recruited leading Asia restructuring lawyer Neil McDonald and rising star Damien Coles from Hogan Lovells. In return, the UK firm poached corporate partner Steven Tran from Kirkland. As competition law continues to develop in Hong Kong and China, BAKER & MCKENZIE bolstered its offering in the city-state by hiring Clifford Chance partner Stephen Crosswell.

Adil Hussain, Clyde & Co In Saudi Arabia, LATHAM & WATKINS hired corporate partner Sami Al-Louzi from Vinson & Elkins, which has been scaling back its Middle East operation for more than a year. He will work across the firm's Riyadh and Dubai offices, focussing on cross border M&A and equity capital markets deals in the region. CLYDE & CO hired Herbert Smith Freehills partner Adil Hussain, who specialises in advising banks on structuring and developing shariah-compliant products, in Abu Dhabi. Hussain's departure leaves his old firm with only one partner in the country's capital.

Bain Capital’s acquisition of 50% of socially-conscious Toms Shoes demonstrates how charitable giving can be built into a corporate structure

It wasn't supposed to take this long. Hong Kong's renminbi (RMB) bond market was purportedly born back in July 2007 when the China Development Bank (CDB) issued 5 billion yuan worth of renminbi-denominated bonds. At the time, this correspondent had just moved to Hong Kong and was covering the Asian market for IFLR. Back then, the mood in China was more expectant than hopeful: bankers and their counsel were confident that CDB's bonds would lead to many more. They anticipated full internationalisation of the currency within two to three years.

Welcome to IFLR's Cross-Border Financing Report, completed in association with Linklaters

The Hong Kong government's successful sukuk signals that more Asian jurisdictions must take Islamic finance seriously. The $1 billion sukuk al-ijarah, issued under Regulation S and Rule 144A, achieved the tightest-ever pricing for a benchmark-sized sovereign issuance from Asia ex-Japan; investors in the Middle East took 36% of that deal.

Do any more US politicians want to blame companies for the country’s inversion issues? It is rare that a piece of corporate accounting and tax planning should be the topic of wide public discourse. But the number of US tax inversion deals launched over the past year has sparked both the public's and politicians' interest. This has been further heightened by the involvement of several household names in these types of deals. Pfizer, Burger King, and Walgreens (which eventually decided against a tax inversion despite a merger with British company Alliance Boots).

The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong's highly-anticipated concept paper on weighted voting rights furthers the market's debate on non-traditional shareholding structures.

The possibility that Scotland could have voted to leave the UK raised many difficult questions, not least of which was a constitutional crisis in the UK. But the ripple effects of a split would have spread throughout the EU.