Are you considering buying a company or putting together a management buy out or buy in?
Are you considering selling your business or divesting your group of an under-performing or 'non-core' subsidiary?
It is important that you choose a mergers and acquisitions solicitor, or team with the appropriate credentials, size and sector or industry knowledge to support you and your colleagues.
We close around 60 corporate deals each year.
The majority of our mergers and acquisitions and buy-out deals are valued at between £1m and £20m. We are experts at advising on M&A deals of this size.
However, we regularly act on smaller strategic or 'bolt on' acquisitions and smaller company sale transactions for UK and international corporates, SMEs and family-owned businesses.
We have also acted on a number of very substantial deals with values exceeding £100m. So in other words, no matter what size your deal is, we can help. See what our clients say.
Having a large Corporate team of 11 Partners and 21 other lawyers and professionals, means that we can deploy a team that is appropriate to the size and complexity of your deal.
Not all corporate deals require substantial deal teams to support them. Larger and/or more complex deals, such as international mergers and acquisition deals will require a larger team to ensure that the negotiations move along at the required pace.
However, all of our corporate deals, large and small, are partner led from beginning to end.
We estimate that at least 20% of our corporate M&A deals have a cross-border element. We have acted on a significant number of deals involving countries throughout Europe as well as deals involving or originating in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, India and the United States. We also act for a number of foreign-based multi-national corporates on UK acquisition programmes. We have the expertise, contacts and experience to support your international growth aspirations.
What is a management buy out, or MBO?
It might be a conventional management buy out funded by debt, equity, or even by the vendor itself.
We recognise it may be evolution as one generation of a family business hands over to the next generation. Our family business expertise gives us unique insight into this transition.
Often an 'MBO' is actually a rationalisation/reorganisation calling for a different understanding and set of skills. We have acted for funders, companies and management teams on MBO/MBI deals, structured in each of these (and other) ways. Our focus is to understand what you want to achieve.
We recognise a management buy out may be a daunting, even life changing process for many management teams. Our focus is about understanding, supporting and solving problems.
A Partner is involved at the outset to answer questions, speak to other advisors, and guide you - whenever required and for as long as required. The process should always be about you and ensuring you are supported and guided through it.
We bring in expertise from our Tax, Restructuring and Employment teams. We don't forget the personal dimension and involve our Private Client team if this is appropriate.
We advise on corporate transactions across all market sectors and industries. We have particular expertise in aerospace & defence, charities and social enterprise, education, energy law, family-owned business, healthcare and technology.
Any deal that we support is the client’s deal – not ours. We appreciate that our job is to paper a commercial transaction, not to jeopardise the negotiations by unravelling the commercial terms.
Corporate transactions can be time-consuming, distracting and, in some cases, quite stressful. We work hard to take the pressure off our clients to enable them, as far as possible, to focus their attention on running their business while negotiations are underway.
Recent acquisition, company sale and buy out deals include:
acting for The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan on the multi-million acquisition of Busy Bees, the largest childcare provider in the UK
acting for the shareholders of C U Unwin Limited t/a Unwin Safety Systems on the sale of the company to US owned, Swedish group, Autoadapt AB
acting for the shareholders of Buffalo Fundraising Consultants on the sale of the company to US group, Ruffalo
advising certain management of the Esporta gym group on its sale to Virgin Active
Overall communication was great. General pro-active approach and willingness to go the 'extra mile' was greatly appreciated.
Our corporate lawyers can advise you on a broad range of corporate transactions and business legal services via our offices in London, Watford, Bristol and Birmingham.
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