Press Releases

Today the Queen’s Speech set out the government’s agenda for the next session and its plans to build back better from the pandemic and level-up opportunities across the country ...

The promotions are across the firm’s divisions; corporate, real estate, personal advisory and business advisory. Shoosmiths’ new partners are: Real estate: Ellie Sandbach (litigation) Personal advisory: Lucy Taylor (wealth protection, Court of Protection) Corporate: Simon Procter Business advisory: Sarah Tedstone (commercial/privacy and data) In addition, Shoosmiths has promoted two to legal director and 13 to principal associate ...

In the latest digital infrastructure deal handled by its specialist team, national law firm Shoosmiths represented Gresham House in a multi-million-pound investment through its British Strategic Investment Fund (BSIF) in Borderlink Broadband Limited, a Scottish based broadband company. The BSIF is one of a range of funds from the specialist alternative asset manager which aims to build a portfolio through investing in sustainable, smaller mid-market UK housing and infrastructure projects ...

Leading technology and fintech lawyer, Prakash Kerai (PK) has joined Shoosmiths’ London office as a commercial partner. Prakash KeraiOver the last fifteen years, Prakash has advised on technology and fintech arrangements at a top 30 UK law firm, becoming its head of fintech. Prakash – who joins the firm from DAC Beachcroft – has a wealth of technology and fintech experience ...

Shoosmiths has advised Five Arrows Principal Investments (Rothschild & Co) in concluding a definitive agreement for a newco funded by Astorg, a leading global private equity firm, to acquire a majority stake in the Opus 2 group. This deal is the fourth major transaction the Shoosmiths team has undertaken for Five Arrows Principal Investments in as many months. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths has been awarded the highly prestigious Investors In People Platinum accreditation, following on from becoming the first Top 50 law firm to achieve Gold status in 2011. This elite accolade puts Shoosmiths in the top 2% of the tens of thousands of companies assessed throughout Investors in People’s history. More than 1085 colleagues completed the survey and 48 colleagues were interviewed as part of the assessment to provide honest feedback ...

LEADING VC specialists at UK law firm Shoosmiths have advised cloud data integration platform Matillion on its $100m Series D funding round. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Battery Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and Scale Venture Partners, as well as venture debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank’s U.K. branch. Matillion makes the world’s data useful with an easy-to-use, cloud-native data integration and transformation platform ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths has today announced its brand-new offering Shoosmiths8 Connected Services, which will provide non-legal products to its clients, complementing the firm’s existing services. Building on the ‘New How’ initiative the firm launched in 2020, Shoosmiths8 Connected Services has been developed to help clients thrive by working smarter, faster and better in an increasingly complex world, where the pace and magnitude of change has never been greater ...

Notwithstanding the pandemic, February marks LGBT History Month; an annual observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history. It is important that the progress we have made to date is not only recognised but celebrated ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths is proud to have received excellent results in both the Legal 500 and Chambers UK legal directories this year. The firm achieved a tremendous result in the Legal 500 with 115 practice areas ranked, and 31 ‘Top Tier’ rankings, with 25 practice areas moving up a tier. Also 17 practice areas were newly ranked for the first time in the 2021 UK Guide, which launched in late September 2020 ...

Popular tourist attraction Yorkshire Wildlife Park (YWP) has raised an additional £38 million-pound by way of debt and equity from BGF and a major high street bank. The development capital will be deployed to double the park’s size and help the park to fulfil its objective of attracting 1.5 million visitors a year. The Doncaster-based park currently has more than 450 animals ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths has expanded its litigation team with the appointment of Jonathon Crook as a partner, to further enhance its award winning financial services litigation practice. With a wealth of experience in advising on all aspects of litigation and dispute resolution since 1991, Jonathon is an established name in this area of law ...

Shoosmiths has expanded its Court of Protection (COP) team with the recruitment of a new partner, Sue Bowler, who will be based in the firm’s Thames Valley office. Sue BowlerSue’s extensive experience and expertise in this area will further enhance the existing high net worth and disputed wills and trust teams currently working in the Thames Valley office ...

A CONTINGENT of corporate, commercial, infrastructure and tax experts at UK law firm Shoosmiths have advised DIF Capital Partners (DIF) on its substantial infrastructure investment into Liberatis Limited (which trades as 4th Utility), allowing the business to majorly expand its ultrafast broadband operations. 4th Utility is an independent broadband ISP, supplying ultrafast connectivity to homes and businesses across the UK via their fibre optic network ...

Shoosmiths is making further strides into the Glasgow market– attracting DWF’s national head of employment, Michael McLaughlin. Michael’s appointment represents further strategic expansion by the firm in Scotland, as he joins recent recruit banking partner Fiona Cameron and real estate partner Barry McKeown who opened the Glasgow location last year ...

The Shoosmiths wealth protection team has been recognised for its work in advising their clients on a range of matters including bespoke tax efficient succession planning, family investment companies, trusts and inheritance disputes, in this year’s Chambers & Partners High Net Worth Guide. Four lawyers from across the firm have been singled out for their expertise in various specialist areas of Private Wealth Law and Private Wealth Disputes ...

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has unveiled a coronavirus jobs and economy recovery plan in a mini-Budget 2020. Here, Catherine Williams, head of Shoosmiths’ living sector and partner and Nick Iliff, co-head of infrastructure and energy sector discuss some of the key announcements and Stephen Dawson, head of financial services provides a warning on spending. Catherine Williams Across our Living sector at Shoosmiths, we have been eagerly anticipating today’s economic update ...

Springboard Corporate Finance has advised the shareholders of Partington Engineering on the cross-border sale of the business to Argent Industrial, a company headquartered in South Africa and quoted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. This is the fourth deal that Springboard has completed post lockdown ...

The corporate restructuring and advisory (CR&A) team at UK law firm Shoosmiths has acted for administrators PwC in the pre-pack sale of popular high street retailer Bensons for Beds. Bensons for Beds, which operates 243 shops, has been bought by its former owner, turnaround firm Alteri Investors, saving nearly 2,000 jobs. Alteri has said it would invest £25m of fresh funding into the retailer to revive its fortunes ...

The banking and finance team at UK law firm Shoosmiths has advised its client Arbuthnot Commercial Asset Based Lending on an asset-based lending facility for the purchase of mechanical contractor Doby Verrolec by Chiltern Capital from Verrolec’s existing parent company Heitkamp & Thumann ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths has grown its national real estate finance offering by hiring specialist senior lawyers in Manchester, Leeds and London, in line with the firm’s growth strategy. Debra Cooper has more than 14 years’ experience and joins Shoosmiths in Manchester as a real estate finance partner from Squire Patton Boggs, where she established and grew the firm’s real estate finance offering in the North, nationally and internationally ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths is trailblazing out of lock-down with its forward-looking initiative, ‘The New How’. Led by partners David Jackson and Tony Randle, ‘The New How’ focuses on how businesses could and should be working to perform optimally in the ‘new normal’. Shoosmiths has been listening to its clients, taking in what they need to work more efficiently and has developed a suite of products designed for smarter, faster and better working ...

The corporate restructuring and advisory team at UK law firm Shoosmiths has advised its client Hilco on the sale of Oasis and Warehouse to online retailer Boohoo. The team has worked on a number of high-profile retail administrations in recent weeks including Monsoon Accessorize, Oddbins, Cath Kidston and Axminster Carpets ...

National law firm Shoosmiths has appointed real estate partner Simon Meek as its new office head in Leeds as it continues to pursue its successful growth strategy in Yorkshire. Simon joined Shoosmiths in 2017 to develop a new real estate practice which he has grown into 35-strong team, including nine partners and two directors ...

UK law firm Shoosmiths has announced eight new partners in its May promotions round. The promotions cover a wide range of practice areas; corporate, real estate, business advisory and personal advisory, across five locations ...