Member Article

Record quarter for Shoosmiths Manchester corporate team

The corporate team at Shoosmiths Manchester is on track for a record year, having advised on deals worth more than £300m in the last month alone.

The team has completed on a number of high profile transactions across a range of sectors, including automotive engineering, real estate and telecoms, underlining its strength regionally and nationally.

The national firm, which is building a Northern hub of legal expertise for clients, has a team of eight in Manchester, including three partners, Karen Procter, Tim Jackson-Smith and Andrew Millar, who joined the firm in September. The team has been further strengthened by the recent recruitment of senior associate, Anna Kerrane, and solicitor Tom Baker.

Key deals completed by the team in recent weeks include:

• the landmark £200m sale of newly-completed Manchester office block No1 Spinningfields by long-standing client Allied London to Schroders Investment Management - a transaction representing the largest-ever single office acquisition in the North West;

• the investment by private equity house Inflexion in the management buyout of Xtrac, the leading designer and manufacturer of high performance gearboxes for the motorsport and automotive industry;

• a multi-million pound fundraising for an international financial services client;

• the £60m sale of North West-based specialist motorbike insurer Carole Nash;

• private equity firm Inflexion’s simultaneous buyout and immediate merger of Bollington Insurance Brokers and Wilsons Insurance Brokers to create Bollington Wilson Group, a leading independent insurance broker with annual gross written premiums in excess of £120m; and

• YFM Equity Partners’ investment in Manchester-based business telecoms infrastructure company 4net.

Corporate partner Karen Procter, said, “It’s been an incredibly busy start to the autumn and we expecting this positive momentum to continue to the end of the year and into 2018.

“Confidence remains high in the region, with both international corporates and private equity bidders particularly active.

“We are proud to have been at the forefront of some truly eye-catching and complex deals for our clients in the North West and across the country, demonstrating the strength of our team and our cross-sector expertise.”

The corporate team’s success builds on a strong 2016, when nationally the firm topped Experian MarketIQ (Corpfin) UK & Ireland M&A league tables to become the UK’s leading legal adviser by deal volume.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Maria Carr .