Shearman & Sterling has announced that Simon Letherman has today joined the firm as Counsel in its Tax Group. He will be based in the firm’s London office.

Simon was previously a senior associate at Slaughter and May where he completed his training contract and subsequently worked for over 7 years. There he developed a broad-based practice and advised on tax aspects of major mergers and acquisitions, structured finance, private equity, insurance and outsourcing, financing and capital markets and property transactions.

Simon has a First Class BA in Mathematics from Oxford University and a PhD in Pure Mathematics from Manchester University. He obtained a distinction in his Legal Practice Course from the College of Law.

Shearman & Sterling’s Tax Group has more than 40 lawyers in the UK, France, Germany and the US. They have advised on some of the market’s most significant deals recently, including:

• ICE Clear Europe on the setting up of its credit default swap (CDS) clearing service
• Johannesburg-headquartered AngloGold Ashanti Holdings, as international counsel, in its offering of $732.5 million guaranteed convertible bonds due 2014 and its parent company, AngloGold Ashanti Limited, as guarantor of the bonds, and
• Abu Dhabi United Group on the acquisition of Manchester City Football Club.