Hill Dickinson’s national corporate team exceeds £2.6bn deal value in record 2020 performance

Leading commercial law firm Hill Dickinson has reported on the successful completion of corporate transactions in 2020 with an aggregate transaction value worth over £2.6 billion.  

The transaction value represents an increase of £1 billion on 2019 figures, having advised on more than 150 completed deals in 2020, almost double the number of transactions it completed in 2019. 

This performance ranks Hill Dickinson as the second most active legal adviser in the North West in the highly regarded Experian 2020 annual league table, published on 29 January 2021, and the firm’s Corporate and Banking team across all UK offices in 20th place nationally

The 150 completed transactions spanned a wide range of sectors, markets and jurisdictions. Notable highlights include:

• Successfully overcoming logistical difficulties and executing a number of complex transactions during the peak of the UK lockdown. This included a number of M&A transactions, IPOs and one of the largest secondary fundraisings by an AIM company during the lockdown. 
• Continuing to have one of the leading AIM practices in the UK. The firm has maintained its top-5 ranking (ranked #4) for the number of retained AIM clients (36) in the latest AIM Advisers Rankings Guide as at January 2021.
• Ranked by Experian as the second most active adviser in the North West by deal quantum activity for 2020.
• Achieving strong rankings in the latest Chambers and Partners UK 2021  and the Legal 500 2021  independent legal directories, which are based on extensive peer-led interviews and client feedback. The firm maintained its rankings in the Corporate/M&A categories and was ranked for the first time in the ECM and AIM categories.
• Continuing to advise the firm’s institutional investor and management team clients on a number of high profile mid-market PE investment deals and buy and build programmes and exits.
• Continued expansion to meet client demand. Recent hires have boosted the Corporate and Banking team to over 70 specialist lawyers across the firm’s offices in Liverpool, London, Manchester and Hong Kong.

Significant transactions during the period include:

• Advising Johnson Service Group on its £85 million placing on AIM.
• Advising the management team of Fishawack Health on their secondary buyout of LDC backed by new PE investment from Bridgepoint Europe VI, a €5.6 billion mid-market fund;
• Advising Finncap and WG partners as joint brokers on a £19.6 million placing on AIM-listed ANGLE plc.
• Advising AIM-listed Arc Minerals Ltd on the disposal of Casa Mining for up to US$50 million.
• Advising the shareholders of Naimuri Limited, a leading UK software development and data analytics company providing services to the UK intelligence and law enforcement communities, on its sale to QinetiQ for £25 million.
• Advising private equity firm LDC on its investment in Rhino Products, Europe’s leading manufacturer of light commercial vehicle accessories

Commenting on his firm’s performance, Craig Scott, national head of Corporate said: “Despite operating in profoundly challenging market conditions, 2020 delivered an extraordinary year for our firm’s national Corporate and Banking team with a significant increase in our completed deal volumes at a time when transaction volumes in the market overall significantly reduced.

“Like most businesses, we experienced a hiatus in Quarter 2 when the first lockdown hit as businesses focused on understanding the challenges ahead, but we continued to work alongside our clients to help them adapt and prepare for the reopening of the economy. By Quarter 4, many of our clients had taken actions to strengthen and experienced a quite startling market recovery and appetite for continued investment and strategic expansion, demonstrating the sheer resilience of certain key sectors in the UK and certain overseas markets.”

Looking towards 2021, he added: “There is no doubt that trading conditions for many sectors will remain challenging for quite some time as a result of Covid and that logistical and regulatory challenges resulting from the UK’s exit from the Common Market will add to that. Despite that, we remain positive that agility, sector expertise and our responsiveness to market conditions will be instrumental in maintaining the good relationships we have with our clients and we look forward to working with them again in the year ahead.”

A summary by type of completed deal highlights in 2020 can be seen here:
Capital markets
Corporate M&A
Private equity, venture capital and growth companies