Good year for finance lawyers as deals market bounces back
The highlights included advising on a number of multi-million-pound international deals as well as a series of investments in a wide range of businesses across the North.
Martin Hulls, senior partner at Ward Hadaway’s Leeds office and head of corporate finance at the firm, said: “This has been a really encouraging past year for the corporate finance team after a couple of the most challenging years which any of us within the sector in this region can remember.
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Hide Ad“While activity on the deals front remains some way off the peaks of the boom years of 2007 and 2008, the past 12 months have seen definite signs of something approaching a return to normality.
“As a firm, I believe we have been helped by the fact that we continued to invest in our corporate finance team in the difficult time following the financial crisis and the recession so we were ready to take advantage when things started to improve.
“And, very importantly, the fact that we have a number of different specialist teams within the department which we can call on, enables us to advise on everything from cross-border multi-million-pound transactions and large-scale refinancings, to £30,000 venture capital investments.”
The largest deal in terms of transaction value on which the Ward Hadaway team advised during the course of the year was the $255m (£150m) acquisition of a significant stake in London-based ED&F Man, a global provider of commodities such as coffee and molasses, and the world’s second largest sugar dealer.
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Hide AdWard Hadaway advised German food giant Sudzucker on the deal, the Mannheim-based group returning to engage the firm’s services after working with Ward Hadaway on the 2009 sale of Sugarfayre.
Ward Hadaway also advised fast-growing LDC investee company Aesica on two important deals during the course of the year; the acquisition of Nottingham-based R5 Pharmaceuticals, in June 2010, and the purchase of three European manufacturing sites from Belgium’s Biopharma, in January 2011.