Practical LawConferences

Alexandra is the General Counsel, Corporate and M&A at RELX Group (previously Reed Elsevier), a FTSE50 company listed in London, Amsterdam (and via ADRs) New York. She is based in London but has global legal oversight of all corporate and M&A transactions across all of the divisions of RELX.  She is also co-author of the OUP publication Schemes of Arrangement: Law and Practice.

Jonathan was previously Chief Counsel of the Thomson Reuters Legal business and is now General Counsel of This is Global. During his time at Thomson Reuters Jonathan lead the cross functional integration of his previous business following its acquisition. He was also part of the Executive Leadership Team that integrated Practical Law into Thomson Reuters. Jonathan has worked for a variety of organisations from large international corporates to start ups and private equity backed businesses. He started his career at Charles Russell Speechlys and he has undertaken a significant number of M&A transactions across a range of sectors.

This is Global is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment groups with three divisions; Global Radio, Global Television and Global Entertainment. Global Radio is the UK’s biggest commercial radio company and home to the country’s three biggest commercial radio brands Capital, Heart and Classic FM. Together with Capital XTRA, LBC, Smooth, Radio X and Gold, these brands reach 24 million people every week on the radio, 10 million unique users every month on Global’s digital platforms and six million people on Global’s social media channels.

Mary is a former practicing attorney who heads AIG’s Global Mergers & Acquisitions Insurance Group, specializing in Warranties & Indemnities Insurance, Tax Insurance and other insurance solutions to facilitate mergers and acquisitions. Mary joined AIG in 2011 after spending 15 years with Aon where she was Managing Director of Aon’s Private Equity & Transaction Solutions Group. Prior to joining Aon, Mary was an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions, securities and general corporate law. Mary earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from Juniata College.

http://www.aig.co.uk/mergers-and-acquisitions_2538_367202.html

Matthew Griffith is a Partner at RPC.  He has wealth of experience, gained over almost 20 years of advising predominantly insurance and wider financial services sector clients on a broad range of transactional, commercial and regulatory matters.  Before joining RPC, he gained substantial in-house legal and commercial experience as Corporate General Counsel and a member of the Senior Leadership Team at global payment services group, Worldpay.  Matthew was previously a partner at two leading international law firms, where he advised clients on acquisitions, disposals, business transfers, product distribution arrangements, commercial contracts, restructuring projects, corporate governance and regulatory matters.

Paul joined LDC in September 2014 having spent the previous seven years at LGV. Whilst at LGV, Paul worked across a number of sectors with a core focus on consumer/leisure and business services. Paul’s deals at LGV included Amber Taverns, ABI and Liberation Group. Prior to LGV, Paul spent three years at Cavendish Corporate Finance and before that he qualified as a Chartered Accountant at Deloitte. Paul has a First Class Honours Degree in Accounting & Finance from Leeds University.

Rebecca advises on domestic and international corporate finance and M&A transactions, including public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures and primary and secondary equity issues.

She also advises on all aspects of data protection audit and compliance, including in the context of corporate and commercial transactions and e-commerce, on strategic sourcings and on day-to-day company law and corporate governance matters.

Highlights include advising:

• Royal Dutch Shell plc in relation to its recommended cash and share offer for BG Group plc;
• Reckitt Benckiser Group plc on the demerger of its RB pharmaceuticals business; and
• Songbird Estates plc on the unsolicited offer by QIA and Brookfield.

Viv has more than 10 years experience in the PwC Capital Markets Group in London, specialising in both equity and debt capital raising transactions. Since returning from a two year secondment in PwC Moscow’s capital markets group, Viv has worked on a number of London and New York initial public offers, high yield bond transactions and financings and reporting for M&A transactions. Viv has recently advised and assisted Coca Cola Hellenic, HSS Tool Hire and Indivior on their successful listing on the Premium segment of the London main market. Additionally Viv also led a global PwC team assisting Markit Ltd and Constellium N.V in attaining a successful listing in New York and New York/Paris Euronext. Viv has also led a number of projects supporting companies in M&A transactions. In the retail and consumer sector, Viv led the private diligence reporting on the dual track sale/IPO process for House Of Fraser, the readmission of Nomad Foods following the acquisition of Iglo and Findus and the IPO of Virgin Active on the JSE. In 2014 Viv assisted AbbVie management, during their aborted takeover of Shire Pharmaceuticals, in navigating the requirements of the Take Over panel rules, including profit forecast reporting and qualified financial benefits, and SEC reporting. Viv also has assisted a number of companies raise capital in both the European and US debt markets including, but not limited to, Marks and Spencer’s, Tesco, David Lloyd, IGLO and Avis. Viv co-author PwC’s IPO Watch publication and is regularly quoted in the financial press such as the London Financial Times, Financial News and the Telegraph.

Maurice is a corporate finance lawyer with over 25 years’ experience.  His practice covers cross border and UK M&A, acting for public and private companies and extensive experience of acting for private equity houses and management teams on leveraged buyouts (public and private), venture capital investments, disposals, and further financings.  He is the author of the leading private equity manual “Private Equity Transactions” published by Sweet & Maxwell and many articles on corporate finance topics.

Maurice trained at Freshfields before joining Wragge & Co where he led both the private equity team and the corporate team.  He served on the Legal and Technical Committee of the BVCA for many years and also spent a year in the legal department of 3i plc.  He is a hands on deal doing partner, committed to ensuring that corporate finance legal processes are handled sensibly and pragmatically with minimal disruption to the underlying business concerned.

James is UK Head of Legal for global insurer AIG.  He has managed M&A transactions both in private practice and in house and also led the extensive legal restructuring of AIG’s European businesses in preparation for the introduction of Solvency II.  In addition, James recently implemented a review of AIG Europe’s corporate governance and brings insights into Board and sub-committee oversight of acquisitions and disposals.  Prior to joining AIG, James was an associate at City law firm Travers Smith, specialising in private equity and corporate finance.

Innovative, insightful and practical, honed by 25 years+ diverse experience.

Whether helping clients to broker multi-party deals, navigate the intersection of business and government or find the right business structure, Peter distils what really matters and uses creative solutions where necessary.

Peter has a particular interest in managing change and in setting legal issues or transactions in the wider context, understanding the perspectives of multiple parties and how they are relevant to delivering success. He has delivered many projects in technology and media solving complex issues concerning software, rights and data. He understands the particular sensitivities of the public sector whether expressed through regulation or direct state involvement in deals. He knows how important it is not to see a supply chain or distribution network as a series of separate transactions but as a series of interdependent relationships from the source to the ultimate consumer.

In addition to his work with clients Peter has also holds a number of leadership roles at the Firm including heading the Commercial Practice and Co-Leading the Firm’s TMT Sector work as well taking a prominent role in the Firm current transformation programme and serving for many years as a member of the International Operations Committee of predecessor firm Lovells.

Peter has written, spoken and appeared on many platforms including Reuters TV, Sky News and PLC magazine on subjects as diverse as the trends in TMT M&A, the UK’s Consumer Rights Act and preparing your business for a downturn. He is also one of the principal creators and contributors to the Hogan Lovells proprietary set of global contracting tools and insight (www.hlcomplexcontracting.com).

Erik D. Lazar is Director and Founder of Transatlantic Law International in London, United Kingdom, an innovative global legal firm which provides a broad range of business law solutions to multinationals and growing companies in more than 95 countries worldwide.

A U.S. lawyer by training with over 25 years of experience in international business law, Erik founded the group in 2001 after more than 15 years of international legal and management experience including in European General Counsel positions for Fortune 50 companies.

Erik specializes in global M&A where he has negotiated or completed more 80 deals worldwide  with more than $5 billion in deal value, restructuring, management of cross-border projects and transactions, international transactions, antitrust, and commercial agreements, as well a global labor and employment law.  He regularly counsels leading companies on M&A strategies, as well as structuring cross-border transactions and post-merger restructuring.

In the area of labor and employment law, he also counsels leading companies regularly on global, regional and local labor issues worldwide focusing particularly on global executive and management contracts and cross-border employment and expansion, as area covered worldwide by Transatlantic Law’s global labor and employment law service,  Labor Law Plus®.

Prior to moving to Europe in 1991, Erik worked as a corporate and litigation lawyer in major U.S. law firms in Boston and New York.

He has lectured extensively before bar associations and corporate groups in the United States and in Europe on topics including European M&A, corporate governance, expanding businesses internationally, improving the general counsel function from an outside and inside perspective, distribution and agency agreements, and key issues in cross border movement of executives as well as global non-competition agreements, among other matters.

Erik is an honors graduate of Yale University and of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and a member of the bars of New York and Massachusetts. He speaks French and German and resides in London.

Mark is a TMT partner based in our Hong Kong office with a practice spanning the Asia-Pacific region.

Mark’s practice covers the full range of commercial and regulatory work in the technology, media and telecommunications sector and in other business sectors that depend on technology, media and telecommunications to reach their customers and manage their operations.

His practice reflects increasing convergence within the TMT sector and the increasingly important interfaces between TMT and financial services, retail, automotive and other sectors. He delivers pragmatic, holistic advice with a strong awareness of international practice and a focus on business value. His particular areas of focus on the commercial front include technology and business process outsourcing, technology, media and data licensing, telecommunications service arrangements, supply chain and procurement, e-commerce and m-commerce, electronic payments, brand licensing, franchising and distribution arrangements and the acquisition and exploitation of intellectual property and information technology assets.

Mark is also one of the Asia-Pacific region’s leading advisors on telecommunications, data protection and cyber security regulations, recognizing that regulatory issues are often the threshold question for new business models and products and services, and that the regulation of data, technology and cyber security are increasingly board level issues.

In addition to holding a JD from the University of Toronto, Mark also has a Bachelor of Applied Science in engineering from the University of Toronto, where he specialized in computer simulation and process design.

Phil is Group Legal Director at the Phoenix Group, a specialist closed life and pension fund consolidator with 5 million policyholders and member of the FTSE 250. His main areas of responsibility are the Group’s equity and debt funding, M&A activities, the listing regime and staff pension schemes. Before joining Phoenix, Phil was a corporate lawyer at Ashurst.

Alexander is a seasoned M&A and corporate finance practioner, having worked on some of the largest matters in the mining and metals industry, including the takeover of Alcan by Rio Tinto, the latter’s rescue rights offering as well as its planned project financing of the largest greenfield copper mine in the world. Alexander has also been involved in Rio Tinto’s previous divestment programmes, having participated in the sale of copper and aluminium assets in numerous jurisdictions.

Nigel Read is a partner in the London Corporate Group at Hogan Lovells.  He specialises in mergers and acquisitions (public and private) and equity capital markets transactions.  He advises major corporations and financial institutions across a wide range of industry sectors and has a particular focus on the real estate sector (where he has advised on a number of REIT and hotel transactions) and the oil and gas sector (where he has advised on a number of upstream and downstream transactions, including in the North Sea).  Nigel is named as a “legal expert” in corporate, M&A by Legal Business and a “leader in corporate finance law” by Chambers.

Paul is Senior Counsel, M&A at Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat).  Prior to joining Etisalat, Paul worked at Clifford Chance for over 5 years, before spending 9 years at Vodafone as Senior Legal Counsel for Corporate and M&A, including a secondment as Vodafone UK’s Head of Legal for Consumer and Wholesale.  He specializes in the full range of public and private M&A and joint ventures, in both developed and emerging markets, as well as having extensive experience of private equity, corporate and restructuring work.  Paul has worked on some of the most high-profile and industry-shaping transactions in the telecommunications and ICT sector during the last decade.  As an aside, Paul has also worked extensively on charity law projects, setting up registered charities and charitable partnerships for Vodafone in several countries and working closely with leading supranational agencies on ground-breaking projects, focusing often on the use of technology and expertise in global disaster response and recovery.

Rachel Canham is Chief Counsel for Mergers & Acquisitions at BT. Rachel leads a team of lawyers advising on BT’s global acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, investments, intra-group restructurings  and other general corporate advisory work. Rachel is keen on strategy and governance, having created BT’s Handbook to Successful Acquisitions (drawing on lessons learned from previous deals) and BT’s Corporate Trading Policy. Rachel recently led on BT’s £12.5bn deal to acquire EE. Prior to her current role, Rachel was a senior commercial lawyer at BT advising on BT’s major outsourcing contracts and other strategic commercial contracts. Rachel was a private practice corporate lawyer at both Latham & Watkins and Dickson Minto W.S. before joining BT.

Neil joined trainline in March 2005 and his role from June 2015 is General Counsel and Director, Regulatory Affairs – and Group Company Secretary.  Prior to that he was Legal and HR Director (and Group Company Secretary). He sits on the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors of Trainline Investments Holdings Limited.  Prior to joining the Company, he worked for four years at Inmarsat Plc, a satellite communications company, as Senior Attorney working on corporate finance and commercial matters, including a number of high yield bond issues, a private equity acquisition of the company and the implementation of a global distribution system. From 1998 to 2000, he worked as a senior solicitor at Nabarro, a law firm in London, primarily relating to merger and acquisition transactions and commercial work.  Neil also practised commercial law for four years at a shipping and transport law firm in the City upon qualification as a solicitor. He qualified as a solicitor in the UK in 1996.

Tony Hawkins is the General Counsel & Head of Commercial for Sterling Energy plc.

At Sterling, Tony is responsible for all legal and commercial aspects of Sterling Energy’s operations.   Sterling’s portfolio includes production from the Chinguetti field in Mauritania and exploration blocks in Mauritania, Cameroon, Madagascar and Somaliland.

He is a senior energy lawyer with over 18 years of experience, predominately in oil and gas but also in power, LNG and renewables.

Tony joined Sterling in January 2013 after 6 years at Centrica plc, where he had a number of roles.  Prior to that, Tony worked for 10 years in private practice in Australia and the UK.

Craig is Senior M&A Counsel at British American Tobacco.  Prior to joining BAT in 2012 Craig was a Senior Associate in the Corporate department at Allen & Overy where he worked on a range of high profile M&A deal and other corporate transactions.  During his time at A&O, Craig spent time on secondment at both GlaxoSmithKline and Petro-Canada. In addition to his role at BAT, Craig is a trustee for London Parks and Green Spaces Forum, a charity which supports public green spaces in London.

James is General Counsel and Company Secretary at Hydrodec Group plc, and was formerly Deputy General Counsel at Compass Group plc.  He has extensive experience in undertaking both bolt-on and transformative private company acquisitions within the UK and internationally; including in leading the legal transaction teams, managing the head office/operating company dynamic and standardising M&A processes.  James lectures on the regulation of Mergers & Acquisitions on the LLM at Warwick University.

Stephen Godsell is Group General Counsel & Company Secretary of PA Group, the parent company of the Press Association, the national news agency for the UK and Ireland and a leading multi-media content provider across web, mobile, broadcast and print. PA Group businesses also include: Sticky Content, the UK’s leading digital copywriting and content strategy agency; TNR, a specialist communications consultancy; and Globelynx, which enables corporate clients to connect with TV news broadcasters around the world.

Stephen previously held senior positions at Clifford Chance as an intellectual property lawyer and at The Economist Group. He has extensive experience of structuring, managing and negotiating acquisitions, digital content deals and other transactions in the media, data and technology sectors, as well as managing cross-border teams.

He is a board director and trustee of The Economist Educational Foundation, a charity that works to inspire and build skills amongst disadvantaged children.

Simon Enoch, 55, is a solicitor and company secretary with over 25 years’ experience of Corporate issues including joint ventures, M&A and  high profile corporate public relations in many European jurisdictions, the US, Japan and Australia for a number of International Companies including Kingfisher. He qualified as a solicitor in 1988

He has been the Company Secretary and General Legal Counsel at Darty plc since the demerger from Kingfisher in 2003.

Robert Goldsmith has been with Wolseley plc for five years. During this time, he has worked on many of the UK and European M&A transactions in which Wolseley has been involved. As well as heading up the Group Legal team, Robert is responsible for all legal matters within the Wolseley Central Europe cluster of businesses and is a member of the cluster leadership team.  Prior to joining Wolseley, Robert was an associate solicitor in the corporate department of Freshfields London.

Krishna Raman is Head of the Corporate and M&A legal team at Lloyds Banking Group.  Krishna provides legal advice on complex M&A transactions and corporate issues affecting the bank.  He has been involved in numerous disposals for the bank given the need to strengthen the bank’s balance sheet following the financial crisis.  Recent significant disposals include the sale of the bank’s stake in TSB.  Prior to joining Lloyds, Krishna worked in the corporate department at Allen & Overy, both in London and Singapore.

James Ibbotson, is a Director in the UK M&A team at Deutsche Bank in London. He has worked on numerous public and private M&A transactions across a wide variety of industries, including consumer, financial services, natural resources, technology and media, general industrial and other sectors. James joined Deutsche Bank’s London office in 2006, having begun his corporate finance career in the European M&A team at SG Hambros.