Exclusive: Khaitan & Co has hired Sharad Abhyankar, the co-founder of ANS Law Associates, as a corporate, commercial and M&A partner in Mumbai with his principal associate.

Khaitan & Co has moved into a larger office in Bangalore, vowing to increase head-counts by nearly 50 per cent there within the next six months.

A wrap of the past weeks’ major deals and their advisers, featuring all the usual suspects plus Rajani, LexCounsel, Prism, HSB, SJ Law, Travers, Nabarro, DLA and more…

Desai & Diwanji has again reclaimed its throne as the busiest M&A firm in India having acted on 33 deals in the first three quarters of the year with Khaitan & Co also laying down improved M&A figures, while AZB & Partners, Talwar Thakore Associates and S&R Associates harvested the biggest value deals, also benefitting Linklaters and Allen & Overy.

Four senior counsel and Naik in SLP against immovable property rental service tax; AZB Bangalore Muthoot debentures; Universal-Wadia Ghandy Pizza Hut deal; Infrastructure India windfarm buy with 3 foreign firms and KhaiCo, MMB; ANM for Godrej in cyber squatter; Rs 200 crore P&A Kemrock buy; Amarchand Essar delisting.

Amarchand goes down under for $1.3bn GVK coal mine buy with Minters, Cliffords; Ex-AZBer’s Vishnu gets busy with Credit Suisse; Vaish hits the capital markets; JSA, KhaiCo, Amarchand disinvest in NYSE-Co; Amarchand restructures Alstom; and Naik gets a John Doe order.

Amarchand on Fortis mammoth internal restructuring, and Alfa Laval delisting; Desai & Diwanji and Seth Dua on two related private equity injections; Khaitan & Co gets close to Raiffeisen; JSA helps Naukri owner expand online reach to Zomato and beyond; MDP gets Cox & Kings out of Maharaja Express pickle for now; JSA and MD&T Partners get Indians to make hoses with Spaniards.

Mirah Hospitality with Desai & Diwanji; Amarchand, Rajani, Khaitan on $350m Welspun PE; Luthra in EU pharma tax case; ELP AP tax victory for MAS-GMR; Khaitan-Clifford on StanChart loan; SRGR-KJSV project; JSA-Prolegal consultancy.

Khaitan-Trilegal inject $78m into Caparo Energy; JSA, Amarchand, S&R on LVMH luxury Genesis investment; Khaitan double teams with Clifford Chance on StanChart loan, AZB’s $1.4bn steel loan, plus sports, projects and Kolkata litigation.

This week’s newsletter – in an experimental new Monday-morning slot – looks at what firms and lawyers get up to in their middle-age. Apparently quite a lot…

European publishing giant enters India with Associated Law Advisers, Universal Legal for Chennai e-publisher, Khaitan gets close to HDFC’s new investment banking head, and more…

After taking on more space in Delhi, Khaitan & Co has hired Bangalore independent Anindita Phukan as a partner and vowed to grow both offices with Mumbai as a model, accepting that they needed to improve local market recognition.

Khaitan & Co advised on private equity firm Blackstone’s Rs 150 crore investment in business and banking technology platform Financial Inclusion Network and Operations Limited (FINO), which was advised by Luthra & Luthra.

Amarchand, Anup Shah on $200m for Blackstone Bangalore investment; Majmudar structures KPMG Indian backoffice with Sidleys; and more…

Khaitan & Co, J Sagar Associates (JSA) and White & Case have advised exchange and trading technology provider Financial Technologies on its $200m debt funding by Deutsche Bank AG.

Khaitan & Co has won the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) approval for French cement company Lafarge to mine limestone in the country’s north-eastern region in a landmark ruling setting the tenor for future reforms in environmental governance after last year’s ban.

Exclusive: Khaitan & Co Delhi-based associate partner Rahul Ray and senior associate Shahana Farah have left to join Lakshmi Kumaran & Sridharan (LKS) as partners along with their team of five lawyers with effect from 1 July 2011.

Khaitan & Co has advised the Welspun Group, which has attracted up to $494m (Rs 2,250 crore) of private equity (PE) money from Apollo Global Management advised by Amarchand Mangaldas.

Khaitan & Co has advised Yes Bank on granting of Rs 84 crore rupee term loan facility to Integrated Coal Mining for the development and setting up of a 9MW solar photovoltaic plant in Kutch region of Gujarat.

Khaitan & Co represented ATM outsourcing company AGS Transact Technologies in its successful bid to raise Rs 145 crore ($32m) in private equity funds from investment firm TPG growth, which drafted in AZB Partners and Milbank Tweed.