36 LAW FIRM
OF THE YEAR AWARD
SPONSORED BY WILKINS KENNEDY WINNER Shoosmiths
Above: The victorious Shoosmiths team receives the Law Firm award from Philippa Robinson (right) of sponsor Wilkins Kennedy
As the Deals Awards evening reached its halfway mark, audience attention focused on another highly-prized award among Solent professionals.
The four award nominees were: Lamport Bassitt, Blake Lapthorn, Moore Blatch and Shoosmiths.
With Sean Kelly of Lamport Bassitt having already been lauded as Lawyer of the Year one table in particular was eager to celebrate a potential Deal Awards ’double’.
Led by Kelly, the corporate team at Lamport Bassitt continued to punch above its weight during 2013, advising on The Appointment Group’s acquisition of ET Travel; the MBO of Darwyler; the MBI of Andante Travels; the acquisition by Quantel of Snell; and the Premium Crops sale to a US group.
Set to be known as Blake Morgan this year, following its merger with Morgan Cole, Blake Lapthorn had demonstrated its ability to handle a variety of transactions throughout 2013. Deals included the complex cross- border sale of The Bluebird Care Group to an American company; the winning of instructions on a disposal/JV where all other advisers were City-based; the sale of David Lloyd Leisure to TDR Capital; and an acquisition for Industrial Acoustics.
Moore Blatch is undertaking an ongoing expansion plan, and the increasing
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number and complexity of deals is evidence of its long-term ambitions.
It worked,
for instance on the MBO and expansion financing by Bowmark Capital of Drake & Morgan, the London restaurant group, and the acquisition of Trinity Expert Systems by Liberata (UK). The disposal of Axell Wireless to Cobham was a headline deal for Peter Jeffery, an adviser to Axell for nearly 20 years.
Shoosmiths was able to put forward an impressive portfolio of deals included the MBO of Imagine Publishing Group; advising Matchtech on the acquisition of Application Services; and The Training Room investment. Shoosmiths is the only firm in the region to act for multiple national PE firms while its banking team also acted for leading banks such as HSBC, Lloyds and RBS on more than 25 transactions.
Anticipation grew in the room as Philippa Robinson, corporate finance director at category sponsor Wilkins Kennedy, announced the winner of the prestigious Law Firm of the Year title – Shoosmiths.
Sean Wright, corporate partner at Shoosmiths said the award was “ … an endorsement of all the hard work that goes in from members of my team.“
Shoosmiths had won the title before: “We have a very strong team doing significant amounts of different work, and we are the
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – JULY/AUGUST 2014
only firm in this area doing lots of private equity work – that’s probably our market differentiator – so we get involved in a number of very high-profile deals.“
He didn’t agree that the legal side of deals was getting more complex.
“What most businessmen, entrepreneurs and big corporates want is clear concise business advice and then the law should take care of itself behind that. I appreciate that complex problems do come out of transactions and life is not always simple, but I do think that some lawyers have a habit of over-engineering.“
An owner or person running a business will understand it better than any professional adviser, he points out. “The trick of the adviser is to spend time with that individual to try to understand the business nearly as well, and then to use their professional abilities to help that business.“
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