ALMT Legal senior associate Preeti Balwani has joined Khaitan Sud & Partners (KSP) as a salaried partner to head up its Mumbai office and drive its corporate practice under a best friendship with a business consultancy started up by an ex-PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) director.

She is the eleventh partner at KSP and will be heading up the Mumbai office of six other fee-earners.

Balwani said that she would aim to gear up KSP’s corporate advisory and M&A practice. “We have a very close professional relationship with Sapphire Professional Services Private Limited, which is run by [its managing director] Timmy Kandhari.

“KSP and Sapphire would together provide holistic transactional services, from tax advisory, business advisory and legal advisory: a one-stop shop from beginning to end [while also servicing] compliance-related requirements.”

“The game plan is to collate strategies we have and consolidate our business and to formulate our plan for what sectors to approach and to take this venture forward,” she added.

Balwani graduated from University of Pune’s department of law in 2004 and holds an LLM from the University of Southampton. She began her career at Udwadia Udeshi and moved to ALMT in 2007.

KSP managing partner Umesh Khaitan will spend two days per week in Mumbai, being based in Delhi the rest of the time.

He said that Sapphire was set up around a year ago and shares an office with KSP in the Indiabulls Finance Centre in Mumbai’s Lower Parel area.

Sapphire provides financial services consultancy work, including valuation, structured finance and other advice for companies and on private equity deals.

Khaitan added that while KSP would continue doing a lot of work in its traditional strength areas of infrastructure and finance and would expand its corporate practice with Balwani, the firm would also try and attract mandates from non-banking financial institutions looking enter the banking sector.

“They’re going to issue six to 12 licences, they’re talking, and applications will be made by industrial houses,” he explained. “We felt, considering our strength in the banking industry, this may be the right time to pitch for a mandate for a particular group to get them a professional banking licence. The time window is only from now - the applications have to be in by July – and by September October licences [would be issued.”

Other partners in Delhi include Malini and Tanuj Sud, Anjali Vohra, Rohina Nath, Ashutosh Khaitan, Trinath Tadakamalla and Mrinal Ojha.

ALMT Legal senior partner Aliff Fazelbhoy commented: “Preeti had a good innings at ALMT and we wish her all the best in her new set up.”