Luthra & Luthra has promoted 2010 Clifford Chance hire and managing associate Indraneel Basu Majumdar to partner in capital markets, swelling the department’s ranks to three non-equity partners and aiming to build up a debt capital markets practice.

Delhi-based Majumdar (pictured) was hired in July of last year on a “partnership track” from Clifford Chance’s London office where he was a senior associate, having also workd in capital markets at Luthra & Luthra and Amarchand Mangaldas in 2006.

He told Legally India: “No one had assured partnership but it was expected that I would be on track and depending on performance and the business needs, I was always reasonably hopeful that it would come through.”

Majumdar explained that his practice currently consisted of 80 per cent of equity capital markets and 20 per cent debt work, but he hoped this ratio would shift to a 50-50 split within five years as more sophisticated debt capital markets instruments were introduced.

“Debt should become as important as equity if not more so,” he said. “The market for debt isn’t as mature here as you would find for example in London or in more developed capital markets. The volume doesn’t seem to be as much as you would have in equity and the regulator has also played a role and encouraged more investments through equity than through debt. That tube is going to develop for a while.”

The firm’s capital markets head Madhurima Mukherjee added that Majumdar’s promotion would add much-needed senior bandwidth in the practice.“I mean it sincerely,” she said, “foreign law firms have larger teams and they have more partners. The attention they can give to a deal and clients is not because foreign lawyers are smarter or more competent than Indian lawyers but just because of the sheer volume that [capital markets lawyers in India] do.”

She said that it was therefore important to consolidate the team to become more partner-led.

In 2009 Manan Lahoty had also re-joined the firm from Shearman & Sterling in 2009 and was promoted to become the firm’s second capital markets partner by the end of the year.