Ian specialises in corporate finance work advising a wide range of public and private companies in connection with a broad spectrum of corporate work including M&A, private equity, shareholder and joint venture agreements and corporate reorganisations.
Ian is a fluent French speaker and before joining firm he spent a number of years working for the Paris office of a leading international firm. As a result of this experience he acts for a number of French companies In connection with their investments in the UK.
Ian also regularly advises clients on corporate governance and other risk and compliance related matters and regularly presents seminars on these subjects.
Experience
Examples of experience include advising:
- Advised the shareholders of Ticketscript in connection sale of Ticketscript to Eventbrite Inc
- Immediate Media on the acquisitions of Jewellery Maker (an internet based and TV shopping channel) and its acquisition of Hitched.co.uk (a leading UK wedding venue and wedding planning website).
- the shareholders of voice of customer intelligence and software leader eDigitalResearch plc on its sale to the MARU Group
- Comexposium, the French world-leading exhibitions group on a number of cross-border acquisitions
- Shareholder Executive (ShEx) and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) on the transfer of the business and assets of Ordnance Survey (OS) from a trading fund to a subsidiary wholly owned by ShEx.
- Ordnance Survey (OS) on a commercial joint venture with a group of investors that OS entered into to develop and operate a new business opportunity. Advised on the terms of the investment and how best to protect OS' rights in the shareholders' agreement and articles of the joint venture vehicle. We also advised OS on the terms of their funding of the JV and carried out due diligence on the co-investor
- AnaCap Financial Partners LLP on its acquisition of Cattle’s invoice discount business from Cattles plc (now rebranded as Absolute Invoice Finance)
- Listed Italian group RCS Media on a series of multi-million pound acquisitions and disposals including:
- the sale of RCS’ majority shareholding in GE Fabbri Ltd to Aurenis SAS, a leading publishing group headquartered in France
- the acquisition of Namesco Ltd (a leading broadband, domain name registration and hosting company)
- the acquisition of the Amen Group, a leading pan-European domain name and hosting service provider
- He has also advised numerous corporate clients (including private equity houses) on their joint venture and shareholder agreements.
He is recognised as a leader in his field of corporate finance by Chambers Guide to the UK Legal Profession 2014 which notes that:
"He's very good to deal with; he always gets to the salient points quickly and manages to see the wood from the trees. He's someone you want to have on your side."