EXPERTISE 

Nick specialises in private and public M&A and other corporate transactional work, such as joint ventures and group reorganisations, across a range of sectors with a particular focus on the Financial Services and Leisure / Retail sectors. 

Recent transactions include advising:

• Lloyds Banking Group plc on its £1.9bn acquisition of MBNA from Bank of America and the sale of debt portfolios to Cerberus and Kennedy Wilson; the sale of the Halifax Child Trust Fund business to Forester; the sale of Hill Hire plc to Ryder Inc. and the sale of Halifax Estate Agencies to LSL Property Services plc. Nick has also been seconded to Lloyds Bank during which time he advised on the sale of its Australian business to Westpac
• Sanne Group plc on its £1.5bn takeover by the Apex Group
• Rathbone Group plc on several acquisitions including that of Taylor Young Investment Management's private client business and R M Walkden & Co
• Wholesale specialist insurance broking firm Miller Insurance Services on its sale 
• M&A in the video games sector including advising Nordisk Games on its investment in Until Dawn developer, Supermassive Group
• Bally's Corporation on its acquisition of mobile app and software developer Degree 53 and investments in technology provider, Gaming Arts and games studio, HungryBear  
• Entain plc on its £485m takeover of Sportingbet plc; £1.1 billion takeover of bwin.party Digital Entertainment plc; and the £4 billion takeover of Ladbrokes Coral Group plc. Nick and team were highly commended and runner-up at the Lawyer 2018 Corporate Team of the Year Awards for the Ladbrokes deal. Innovative aspects of that transaction were also highly commended at the FT's Innovative Lawyer Awards 2018 
• Leading rail freight provider, Freightliner Group, on its acquisition by Arcapita and its subsequent acquisition by Genesee & Wyoming Inc.
• Delta plc on its takeover by Valmont Inc.
• King Sturge on its merger with Jones Lang LaSalle