Simon Wood

Expertise

Simon is a corporate partner based in London and regularly advises public companies on the full range of transactions on the Main Market and AIM. He has particular expertise in public M&A having recently returned from a two year secondment as Secretary to the Takeover Panel, where he was responsible for regulating the most significant recent M&A transactions, such as AB InBev’s £79bn offer for SAB Miller, SoftBank’s £24.3bn acquisition of ARM Holdings and Kraft Heinz’s abortive approach for Unilever. He was also involved in all the major decisions and policies made during that time. As a consequence, he has a unique insight into the manner in which the Takeover Code is applied by the Panel on a day to day basis. 

Recent transactions include advising:

• IMImobile plc on a £543m recommended offer from Cisco Systems, Inc
• A&J Mucklow Group plc on the £415m recommended offer from LondonMetric Property plc
• Ted Baker plc on its class 1 disposal of Big Lobster Limited, the owner of the Ugly Brown Building
• on DNO ASA's £642m hostile takeover of Faroe Petroleum plc
• DBAY Advisors on its £98.7m takeover offer for Harvey Nash Group plc
• GVC Holdings plc on its up to £4 billion takeover of Ladbrokes Coral Group plc