At the heart of dealmaking across the UK

Supporting the deals which drive commercial success, our corporate teams are delighted by national research from Experian showing the firm placed among major dealmakers in the UK in the first quarter of this year.

We were ranked fifth nationally for deals by volume, which reflected our rankings in the top three in both the South West and in the Midlands. We took fifth place in London, the heart of M&A work, and came in number eight in the East of England, matching some much larger firms.

The type of deals handled by our teams range from Paragon Banking Group’s acquisition of development finance provider Titlestone Property Finance and its loan book, for an aggregate enterprise value of £276m. Our Cheltenham team handled overseas involvement, a multitude of other advisers and highly complex due diligence, all within six weeks, to ensure Paragon’s continued growth and development.

Our expertise and flexibility stood Falcon Housing Association CIVC in good stead too when we acted for them on a market-saving deal to ensure that leases of both social housing and residential homes were transferred from First Priority Housing Association (FHPA) to Falcon.

FHPA’s uncertain financial future and CVA put real estate investment trusts (REITs) under pressure in this growing marketplace – our detailed understanding of the needs of all parties meant that we could complete the deal to the satisfaction of all those involved, and swiftly, to provide much-needed marketplace stability.

In the cutting-edge tech sector, we acted for the management team at FluidOne, a leading data connectivity aggregator, in its acquisition by Livingbridge, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investors.

The deal creates exciting opportunities for both FluidOne and its customers. As well as allowing FluidOne to pursue its own growth targets and to exploit new opportunities that arise; for example around the UK fibre optic roll-out, it allows new customers of FluidOne to maximise the power of their own business data through connection to the FluidOne platform.

Experian’s report shows that M&A activity is considerably down on the same period last year, but there’s still plenty of dealmaking going on, so we look forward to more great challenges ahead. You can see the report here.