What has been the absolute deal highlight of your career so far and why?
Advising Liberty Global on its fixed and mobile UK telecoms joint venture in the UK to create what is now Virgin Media O2. We negotiated the transaction over a relatively short period right at the start of the first Covid lockdown, and it was amazing to watch a huge team adapt and still find a way to get the deal agreed.
Can you describe a time when something didn’t go according to plan career/deal-wise and what you learnt from it?
I worked on a number of deals as an associate where issues arose as a result of the unwillingness of those involved (clients/advisers) to challenge something that was being proposed, on the basis that it didn’t seem to make sense. As a result, I am perfectly happy asking the “silly question” and, more often than not, when you ask the question it becomes clear that others had similar concerns.
What are your top tips for those looking to become M&A partners?
Work on as many deals as possible and try and get a wide range of experience acting for different types of clients on a variety of deal structures. Also work for a range of partners so you can pick and choose the parts of their working styles you like best when developing your own working style.
How do you think practising M&A law is going to change in the coming years? What do you think will have the biggest impact?
There is going to continue to be constant change. One that is clear at the moment is a shift in the types of client doing big M&A – we need to move away from solely building relationships with traditional staple clients (eg PLCs and other big corporates) and focus on other sources of capital that are increasingly active in M&A as well.