High profile corporate lawyer Neil Fearis has returned to the big end of town, taking on a role as special counsel with Minter Ellison after seven years in boutique practice.
Mr Fearis left Blake Dawson Waldron in 1998 and established Fearis Salter Power Shervington, a regular feature in the WA Business News Legal Elite.
A year and a half ago, that partnership was split with the emergence of West Perth firm Salter Power, established by Stephen Power and Simon Salter who broke away from Mr Fearis and their other partner Jeremy Shervingham, who remains a sole practitioner.
Mr Fearis said that he will remain servicing his existing, mainly resources-focused, client base in his new role with Minter Ellison.
He told WA Business News that the decision to join Minter Ellison, following a recent trend of other boutique founders returning to the big firm fold, was largely driven by his desire to access quality mergers and acquisitions work which he felt was the domain of the larger law firms.
"There is no doubt you can make a very good living as a corporate lawyer in West Perth," he said.
"I don't think anyone is going to starve, it is just getting hold of the most interesting work."
Mr Fearis said this reflected the fact that much of the non-legal M&A work was conducted by other large advisory groups which preferred using big law firms.
"I have been finding that you need a big name behind you if you want to get into the big ticket M&A work."
He said there was a significant amount of corporate work available but he predicted a shift of activity after the IPO binge of the past 18 months which included around 100 floats in WA.
"I think the next probably 12 to 18 months will have quite a bit of consolidation as juniors which raised their $5 million a year ago have to raise some more money either by going back to the market or sheltering in a larger structure," Mr Fearis said.
He predicted the areas of activity would be among the juniors with bankable projects and the mid-caps who are big enough for the majors to take an interest in.
"It will be the international mining houses gobbling up mid-cap stocks and the minnows at the bottom huddling together for comfort."
