Private equity

The current economic environment means that private equity transactions are being structured and financed in a number of different ways to deal with the challenges arising. This highlights the need for experienced lawyers that are able to act efficiently and commercially in delivering top quality advice.

Speechly Bircham has an experienced private equity team that boasts an in-depth knowledge of advising on all aspects of private equity transactions including MBOs, MBIs, buy-and-builds, secondary buy-outs and exits. Our team has advised on one of the most high profile private equity transactions of the year to-date, forming part of the Speechly Bircham team advising Kevin Stanford on the sale of All Saints Retail Limited to a new company majority owned by Lion Capital and Goode Partners, as part of a highly complex private equity backed refinancing.

We have the capability to act on all stages of the private equity life cycle from fund formation, to investment, to ultimate exit. Members of the team have experience of working on the full range of private equity transactions from small cap to some of the largest deals, including advising on two of the largest private equity transactions in the UK in 2010.

One unique aspect of our offering is our strong private client presence, which gives us access to family-offices, high and ultra-high net worth individuals as well as business owners and presents opportunities from a private equity perspective, including in relation to assisting deal origination and ability to refer transactions.

Our private equity team forms part of our Corporate finance group which focuses on three major work streams: (1) private equity, (2) private M&A, restructuring and general corporate transactional work, and (3) capital markets and other work for public companies.

We also have a full service offering in all areas necessary to support private equity transactional work including strong banking and tax teams with experience of advising on all aspects of debt financing and tax related matters relevant to private equity transactions. In addition, we have teams in the full suite of specialist areas including intellectual property, competition, employment, pensions, real estate, commercial dispute resolution and restructuring.

Recent transactions that members of our private equity team have worked on include:

  • FF&P Private Equity and Bestport Ventures - acting for FF&P Private Equity and Bestport Ventures on the management buy-out of the payment technology company, CreditCall.
  • Spicers Limited - acting for a senior industry MBI team member and the acquisition vehicle backed by Better Capital on the £32m acquisition of Spicers Limited and Spicers (Ireland) Limited, the leading office products and stationery wholesaler
  • Sale of All Saints Retail Ltd - acting for Kevin Stanford on the sale of All Saints to private equity investors, Lion Capital and Goode Partners, as part of a highly complex private equity refinancing
  • Take private of Coolabi plc - acting for management of Coolabi plc on the take private of Coolabi by North Promotions Limited, a company backed by Edge Performance Venture Capital Trust plc
  • Iceni Capital investment - acting for Iceni Capital on its investment in the PR consultancy, Stockwell Group
  • US$830m sale of Sophos plc - acting for the majority shareholders (including TA Associates and founder shareholders) on the sale of Sophos plc to Apax Partners (in a transaction valuing Sophos plc at $830 million
  • Sale of Autobar Group for €1.2 billion - acting for management on the sale of the Autobar Group to CVC Capital Partners for a total enterprise value of €1.2 billion and acting for the Autobar Group on several add-on acquisitions including the recent acquisition of Bunzl Vending Services
  • Elysian Capital acquisitions - acting for Elysian Capital on its acquisitions of the English Landscapes Group, Wyevale Grounds Maintenance and Banyards Limited
  • Bregal Capital acquisition - acting for Bregal Capital (formerly Englefield Capital) on the acquisition of The Danwood Group Limited and Bregal Capital's follow-on investment in the Danwood Group
  • NBGI Private Equity MBO - acting for NBGI Private Equity on its management buy-out of facilities services provider Facilities Services Group Limited from Spice Limited
  • RO Leaders Limited MBO - acting for the management team of RO Leaders Limited, the UK’s largest specialist residential lettings and property management agency on the Bowmark Capital backed management buy-out from RO Group
  • Elephant Capital acquisition - acting for Elephant Capital plc and co-investors on their acquisition of a stake in ClinTec Luxembourg SA, a clinical research business with operations in over 30 jurisdictions worldwide.

These transactions show our breadth of experience in acting for private equity sponsors, as well as management teams and investee companies.