Exclusive: Wadia Ghandy & Co has hired two laterals as partner from in-house and from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, and promoted two associates, growing its partnership to 28.

Exclusive: Khaitan & Co has not promoted any partners internally in its annual promotion round after internally restructuring its associate and partnership track, nine associates were promoted to senior associate level and one lateral associate partner joined in Mumbai.

Exclusive: Naik Naik & Co has opened a Delhi office and promoted two partners to equity partnership and two senior associates to salaried partner.

Exclusively: Khaitan & Co is actively scouting to open Chennai and Hyderabad offices as Amarchand Mangaldas lateral partner Ganesh Prasad started in the Bangalore office yesterday with a remit to focus on South India.

Exclusive: Barely one-year-old start-up Verus Advocates will convert to equity partnership tomorrow with Bharucha & Partners corporate senior associates Dipankar Bandyopadhyay and Jay Parikh joining in Mumbai, while litigators Rishad Chowdhury and Sourav Bhagat will join in Delhi and Kolkata respectively.

Exclusive: ALMT Legal has elevated Mumbai litigation senior associate Subhash Jadhav to partner as four associates were promoted to senior associate level.

S&R Associates and Jones Day advised the book running lead managers (LMs) Kotak Mahindra Capital and UBS Securities India on the first ever Institutional Placement Programme (IPP) in India. Indian realty major Godrej Properties’ (GPL) issued a private placement of Rs 4.9 bn ($95m) of equity shares worth Rs 575 each. GPL was advised by Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co.

Khaitan & Co and Japanese law firm Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, Tokyo advised Asian private insurance leader Nippon Life Insurance on the largest ever Indian mutual fund investment. Nippon purchased a Rs 1450 crore ($290m) 26 per cent stake in Indian asset management leader Reliance Capital ...

Amarchand Mangaldas scored a first-time mandate for Japanese conglomerate NEC Corporation in assisting Davis Polk & Wardwell in its $449m (Rs 2280 crore) acquisition of US telecoms company Convergys Corporation’s information management (IM) business.

Legally India’s round-up of the latest 15 cases and deals and their legal advisers, including Luthra’s defence of Yahoo! India in two high-profile cases, and a massive boom in debt capital markets – but only one equity cap markets deal for AZB.

Khaitan & Co partners Rajat Mukherjee, Daksha Baxi and Manas Kumar Chaudhari advised Japanese airfreight forwarding and logistics company Kintetsu World Express (KWE) in its Rs 270 crore ($54m) purchase of 30 per cent stake in a joint venture with Indian supply chain solutions provider Gati whi...

Luthra & Luthra represented private equity funds Barings Private Equity Partners, Siguler Guff and Sequoia Capital on their 4 per cent equity investment in listed gold loan company Manappuram Finance, which was represented by Amarchand Mangaldas’ Bangalore office. Luthra and Luthra Delhi-based ...

AZB & Partners has for the first time advised L Capital, the private equity arm of luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton Moët Hennesy (LVMH), which bought 8 per cent in Indian clothes and lifestyle product retailer Fabindia from Wolfensohn Capital Partners, which was represented by Luthra & Luthra. Menon Associates is understood to be representing Premji Invest on its 7 per cent investment.

Exclusive: AZB & Partners Delhi has promoted corporate senior associate and 2000 NLSIU Bangalore graduate Debashish Sankhari to its partnership yesterday.

Desai & Diwanji advised the Ashok Piramal Group in its Rs 1250 crore to Rs 1500 crore ($250m to $300m) three-way joint venture (JV) with Canadian engineering group SNC-Lavalin, which was advised by Economic Laws Practice (ELP), and IDFC project equity’s investment fund India Infrastructure fund (IIF), which was advised by Khaitan & Co.

The Bombay High Court has today ruled in favour of MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX), represented by J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Naik Naik & Co, against the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) decision to prevent MCX from trading in derivatives and other products.

K Law and Linklaters have advised Reliance Industries on its Rs 22bn ($450m) joint venture with Russian petro company Sibur, which was advised by Khaitan & Co and Herbert Smith, as Legally India had earlier reported.

MV Kini & Co has started a tax practice with the hire of start-up lawyer Shrikant Kamath as partner in Mumbai, while former in-house lawyer Ram Verma has joined the Hyderabad office.

Former Amarchand & Mangaldas associate and NLSIU Bangalore alum Anand Damodaran joins Ropes & Gray as partner today in London, leaving White & Case where he was a senior associate until last month.

Six deals in brief covering capital markets, M&A, competition law and more.