Shakespeare Martineau corporate team supports £4.6 billion in deals

The corporate and banking teams at law firm Shakespeare Martineau have supported a record-breaking £4.6 billion-worth of deals during 2023, across a range of sectors. 

Experts in mergers and acquisitions, fast-growth businesses, funding and finance, Shakespeare Martineau’s national team of more than 80 lawyers enjoyed an increase in activity and value in 2023. Sector highlights include energy, infrastructure and renewables, technology, med tech and healthcare. 

In addition to larger deals, the firm’s corporate team is taking on significantly more complex deals, such as Helm Godfrey’s sale to Hurst Point Group in 2023, and the takeover of gold mining company Tulla Resources, which included a merger, demerger and fundraising of A$75 million. The firm’s single largest deal came in at £1.2 billion for an undisclosed fund manager. 

Michael Stace, partner and head of corporate, said: “The calendar year of 2023 was another strong year for our corporate team. Despite the challenging market conditions, and the fact that most transactions are taking longer to close, we managed to increase both the volume and value of matters we advised on in 2023 compared to 2022. 

“I am very proud of this achievement given the UK M&A market actually experienced a material reduction in volume and value in 2023 and it is testament to the hard work of our national team and the investments we have made in it.  

“2024 will be an interesting year but we remain optimistic, are still seeing a decent level of activity and new enquiries and have plans for further investments.” 

Naomi Tudor, head of banking at Shakespeare Martineau, said: “In 2023, our lender clients remained very busy in the healthcare and manufacturing space, and we also saw more of the lenders coming back into the construction and development space with smaller development projects being supported again. We were able to successfully win some new lender clients, most notably Reliance Bank Limited focussing on the charity sector, which sits alongside and is well supported by our charity sector team.   

 “Repeat instructions from our growing borrower base including working with our corporate and real estate colleagues has demonstrated our ability to offer a strong and value for money service.   

“We have also seen an increase in cross-border security and lending from both our lender and borrower clients, which has resulted in some interesting multi-jurisdictional transactions. 

“2024 has started with a strong wind and with a better economic outlook being forecast, particularly driven by stabilising/reduced borrowing costs, the team’s borrower practice looks set to grow and alongside the strong lender work the team does, fuelled by recent new lender client wins, we are expecting 2024 to be a very busy and successful year for the team.” 

Mohammed Saqub, head of Islamic finance, said: “The real estate finance team has this year advised on a significant volume of transactions across the various financial sectors that we are engaged on regionally, nationally and internationally.   

“We have on-boarded two new Islamic finance clients – a bank with its parent bank based in Bahrain and another with its parent based in Kuwait, as well working on property transactions with clients from the Far East – in addition to acting for other banks across the GCC including Saudi Arabia. This gives our Islamic Finance practice an increasingly international footprint as clients come to us for our market knowledge and client-focussed approach.”