Iain is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and Scotland and he works from our Newcastle office. He specialises in all aspects of corporate law including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, shareholders’ agreements and intra-group re-organisations. He has gained this experience working for a wide range of clients from entrepreneur start-up businesses to listed plc’s.
Iain has extensive experience advising private and public sector clients to set up corporate joint ventures. Iain regularly provides advice on joint venture structuring and the appropriate corporate vehicles to use. In particular, Iain has acted on a variety of real estate joint ventures. Further, his experience includes acting for joint venture partners at the end of the joint venture and he has advised clients who are acquiring 100% of the entity and those who are exiting.
As an experienced solicitor leading on mergers and acquisitions Iain’s skills include project managing of multi-disciplinary teams across the firm to co-ordinate dataroom due diligence exercises and drafting and negotiation all the documents required for a successful sale and purchase.
Experience
Examples of experience include advising:
- Grainger plc on its £57m acquisition of The Forge, a well-known private rented sector development based in Forth Banks, Newcastle
- an investment firm on the sale of eight real estate SPVs owning a variety of residential properties by way of an offer document
- on the creation of a joint venture SPV, including Karbon Homes as a member, which will deliver a high spec £10m apartment complex on the North Shields Fish Quay
- Augean plc on its acquisition of the EcoCentre in Peterhead from US oil services firm Halliburton
- Newcastle City Council on the procurement, selection and negotiation with PfP igloo to set up a joint venture entity to re-generate a key brownfield site in the city centre
- the selling shareholders of Cedardell Limited, which trades as Lockpoint, a security consultancy business specialising in ATM Security, on the successful sale of the entire issued share capital to Cennox PLC
- on the creation of a joint venture SPV for the proposed development of 280 apartment build to rent scheme on a Newcastle brownfield site
- Augean plc on the sale of the business and assets of Augean Treatment Limited, including the High Temperature incinerator in East Kent for £3.5m
- Augean plc on the disposal of the business and assets of Colt Industrial Services
- Newcastle City Council in its district energy partnership with Engie
- Newcastle City Councilin its joint venture with the University of Newcastle and Legal & General on the £350m regeneration of Newcastle Helix, a 24 acre mixed use city centre site, including drafting and negotiating the constitutional documents for the relevant limited liability partnerships
- GRIP (a unit trust part owned by Grainger plc) on its £57.3m acquisition of Kew Bridge Court Guernsey Limited which owned the freehold of a private rented residential estate of 94 flat and 4 houses in Kew Bridge London, W4
- Reece Group on a number of its acquisitions including the purchase of Responsive Engineering.
"He is always straight to the point, on time and very good with people."
Chambers 2021
