Allen & Overy

Louise Wolfson

Demerger, supervising and messy play!

The past few weeks have been considerably quieter for me, now that the main work on the Cable & Wireless demerger has been done.  The process is not over yet – the first step, being a scheme of arrangement to put in place a new topco for the group, completed on Friday afternoon and the shares of the new holding company, Cable & Wireless Communications Plc started trading this morning.  If everything goes according to plan, the whole demerger will become effective next Friday, and then it will just be a question of organising the celebratory drinks!  Allen & Overy hosted the shareholder meetings to approve the demerger and so a lot more of us were able to attend than normally would be invited.  Although the resolutions were passed overwhelmingly in favour of the demerger, there were a few interesting questions which the chairman had to tackle.  Inevitably, particularly in the case of an iconic name such as Cable & Wireless, individual shareholders have strong views on what should happen to the company.  That said, the chairman dealt effectively with each question and the whole thing was over in less than an hour.

“The department is certainly busier than it was this time last year”

Things have been busy for me in my capacity as a trainee supervising partner over the past few weeks as well.  We have come to the end of a 6 month rotation which means agreeing grades for the trainees in my group and participating in their appraisals.  I like to sit in on all the appraisals so that when we come to make decisions about qualification, there is a partner who is knowledgeable about how each trainee has performed during their time in our group.  We have also welcomed a new bunch of trainees to the group – a mixture of new joiners and more experienced trainees.  The department is certainly busier than it was this time last year so hopefully there will be plenty for them to do.

One of the things that I have also done recently is a media course.  Essentially this was a one-to-one session with a journalist and cameraman, and I was interviewed various times to get used to dealing with the style of questioning, providing a useful sound-bite and avoiding pitfalls. It is always rather disconcerting to see oneself on film, especially as I am not used to doing so (unless you count my wedding video but I don't think I have watched that either!).  It was, however, extremely worthwhile and provided a lot of useful tips for general presentations and public-speaking, not just for interactions with the media.  By the end of the session, I was actually quite enjoying it and the journalist told me that there are not many women in business who are frequently quoted, so who knows, you may start seeing my name in lights and not just in the A&O graduate recruitment website!

As you may recall, we spent the half term break at Center Parcs.  We had a lovely time despite the fact that it rained a lot and was generally freezing cold.  The highlight for my son was shooting his father 7 times during "Laser combat", the highlight for my 5 year old daughter was going down the waterslide and the highlight for my little daughter was squelching custard and noodles during messy play.  I enjoyed the downtime and catching up on a few DVDs with a glass of wine in the evening.  It may not have been the Four Seasons, but it was definitely a holiday!

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