It’s a deal! Record year for Mills & Reeve corporate team

As well as ranking 7th nationally, our regional offices also did well in the review, placing 1st in the East, 5th in the South East and 7th in the Midlands. 

The review looked at the number of mergers and acquisitions, and equity capital market transactions with a deal value of £500,000 or more, completed between 1 January and 30 December, 2016. 

The corporate team at Mills & Reeve had a successful 2016, completing more than 100 deals nationally that met Experian’s criteria. The team advised on a wide-range of deals including:

• The £165 million IPO and £75 million fundraising of technology distributor Midwich
• Acquisitions of the Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner chains by Boparan Restaurant Holdings
• £14 million sale of PayPoint’s online payment business (comprising PayPoint.net and Metacharge) to Capita plc and the £26.5 million sale of its mobile payments business to Volkswagen Financial Services
• £18 million sale of Allinea Software to global technology giant ARM
• Sale of Bupa Home Healthcare to Celesio UK
• £18 million takeover offer for AIM quoted engineering company SWP Group
• Advising a media and entertainment group on its extensive festivals acquisition programme
• Cardiff University on the launch of a £300 million public bond issue
• Closing more than £350 million of real estate finance deals for AgFe
• Advising on 85 venture capital investment deals with aggregate investment of over £107 million

Many deals completed had a cross-border element and the team has acted on matters involving over 75 different jurisdictions in the last year putting the firm in 15th position in Europe for number of deals. 

Kevin Lowe, who leads the corporate and commercial group at Mills & Reeve, said: “This result is testament to the resilience of our team and the ambitions of our clients, despite some challenging circumstances around the Brexit result in 2016. Our placing in the top ten demonstrates the robust nature of our client list and the hard work put in by all involved to get some really substantial deals over the line. 

“We are now looking ahead to the coming year and are already seeing some exciting deals on the horizon. Even with the continuing uncertainty around the details of the Brexit deal, our clients remain optimistic and are already looking for new opportunities. 2017 looks set to be another successful and exciting year for Mills & Reeve and our corporate clients.”