Our work encompasses mergers and acquisitions and other high-level corporate finance activities – and we look after some of the world's most complex commercial transactions, typically with cross-border dimensions.

Typical work | What you might do | Notable deals | Awards

Our Corporate practice is the largest of any law firm, with more than 1000 lawyers and a strong presence in all the major financial centres of Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. This area is primarily concerned with big business and we have a number of groups dedicated to different types of work. These include:

• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Private Equity
• Private Fund Formation
• Communications, Media & Technology
• Financial Institutions Group
• European Competition and Regulation

Partners apply a creative, business-focused approach, leading teams of lawyers in working closely with clients to access the full breadth of our comprehensive intellectual and logistical resources.

Typical work

Corporate work can be both transactional and advisory. It usually involves complicated legal investigations and reviews, detailed negotiations and multi-faceted documentation. The range of work is diverse and includes: 

• Public and private mergers, acquisitions and disposals
• Demergers, takeovers and stock market flotations
• Public offerings and private placings of company stock
• Company formations, restructuring and reorganisation
• Private equity investments
• Advising international insurers, banks, exchanges and asset managers on corporate finance matters and all manner of business issues
• Commercial contracts
• Acting for fund managers seeking to raise investment capital and for investors looking to place capital under management
• Regulatory and transactional work involving public and private organisations in regulated sectors such as energy, broadcasting and telecommunications
• Regulatory issues involving EU and UK competition law, particularly relating to mergers, takeovers and joint ventures; market, sector and cartel investigations; state aid and public procurement

Most deals are high value and the practice combines technical expertise in cross-border and domestic deals with leading regulatory, anti-trust and commercial capability.

Sector Focus

A key element of our strategy for Corporate is to focus on broadening our client base across 12 key industry sectors:

• Banks
• Consumer Goods & Retail
• Energy & Infrastructure
• Healthcare
• Industrials
• Insurance
• Investment Management
• Private Equity
• Real Estate
• Sovereign Wealth
• TMT
• Transport & Logistics

Our partners and lawyers meet regularly as sector teams and work closely together across offices and practice areas to share knowledge and information that will benefit our clients. For example, our sector teams monitor changes in the legal and regulatory environment that might impact on our clients, enabling them to respond quickly and manage new risk. 

Our clients tell us that they appreciate having lawyers who understand their sector and who invest in gaining insight into the issues, trends and developments affecting their business. We encourage and support our lawyers in enhancing their sector insight through client secondments. We also run sector and client-specific workshops at which our clients present to us on their ambitions and challenges and how their legal advisers can help.

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What you might do

Our corporate practice is sub-divided into a series of groups that specialise in particular kinds of transactions. As you would expect, the range of tasks for trainees is broad and will vary according to your group. You could spend your time drafting ancillary documents; coordinating the team of lawyers from different departments and offices involved in a single transaction, or taking responsibility for all the data and documentation it requires; undertaking legal and company research; writing articles on recent case law or legal issues; dealing with clients; carrying out essential proofreading, verification, business analysis or legal review; or doing due diligence work.

Whatever your responsibilities, you will have a good deal of exposure to large corporate transactions. Liaising with numerous other departments and offices is commonplace so you will certainly have the opportunity to widen your network and learn about the expertise and capabilities available elsewhere in the firm. 

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Notable deals

• Advising the Carlyle Group on the £1 billion acquisition of RAC, the UK-based provider of motoring and vehicle services, from Aviva
• Advising the Carlyle Group on the €480 million acquisition of the B&B Hotel Chain
• Advising EQT on the SEK12 billion acquisition of the Domestic Group
• Advising Apollo and CVC Capital Partners on their recommended bid for Brit Insurance Holdings, valuing Brit at up to £888 million
• Advising the private equity houses Clayton Dublier & Rice, Axa Private Equity and Caisse des dépôts du Quebec on the €2.1 billion acquisition of Spie Group
• Advising Bank of America Merrill Lynch Capital Partners on the £450 million disposal of Integrated Dental Health to a vehicle controlled by the Carlyle Group and Palamon Capital Partners
• Permira and Birds Eye Iglo Group on the €805 million acquisition of Unilever's Italian frozen foods business, Findus Italy
• Advising London-listed hedge fund manager Man Group plc on the agreed US$1.6 billion acquisition of NYSE-listed rival hedge fund, GLG Partners Inc
• Advising Warburg Pincus on the acquisition of the Poundland Group
• Advising Babcock International on the recommended acquisition of VT Group
• Advising Bridgepoint on the £414 million acquisition and de-listing of health and social care provider Care UK
• Advising Clayton Dubilier & Rice on its acquisition of British Car Auctions from Montagu Private Equity
• Advising Duke Street on the disposal of leading UK skincare brand Simple to Alberto-Culver for £240 million
• Advising Deutsche Telekom on the signing of a final agreement with France Telecom to combine its T-Mobile UK business with Orange UK as a 50:50 joint venture, a deal that will create the UK's largest mobile phone business with sales of £8.2 billion
• Advising Kraft Foods International on its GBP 11.9 billion takeover of Cadbury
• Advising Suntory Holdings Limited in its acquisition of Orangina Schweppes Group

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Awards

• Best European Law Firm (Transactions) 2011 – 2010 – Private Equity International Awards
• Private Equity Team of the Year & Deal of the Year – IFLR European Awards 2009 and 2011
• European Law Firm of the Year – Chambers Europe Awards for Excellence 2009
• International Law Firm of the Year – IFLR European Awards 2009
• Private Equity and M&A Legal Team of the Year – Private Equity News Advisory Awards 2006, 2007 and 2009
• M&A Award for the Chinalco stake build in 2008 – Asian Legal Business China Law Awards 2009
• Private Equity Team of the Year – Legal Business Awards 2009
• International Law Firm of the Year – Which Lawyer? Law Firm Awards 2009
• Global Law Firm of the Year – Who's Who Legal Awards 2008
• M&A Law Firm of the Year and Private Equity Buyout of the Year – Acquisitions Monthly Awards 2008
• Law Firm of the Year: Fund Structuring – Unquote Private Equity Awards 2009
• Global Law Firm of the Year  (Fund Formation, 2008-2009), Global Law Firm of the Year (Transactions, 2008-2009), European Law Firm of the Year (Fund Formation, 2007-2010) – European Law Firm of the Year (Transactions, 2007, 2008 and 2010), Private Equity Real Estate Awards
• Legal Adviser of the Year – EVCA/Real Deals European Private Equity Awards 2008
• Legal Adviser of the Year – BVCA/Real Deals The Private Equity Awards 2008
• Private Equity Legal Adviser of the Year – Financial Times and Mergemarket Awards 2007 and 2008

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