Howes Percival LLP

Corporate

Tom is a corporate, M&A, private equity and venture capital specialist and also Head of the Firm’s Automotive Sector Group. The winner of the inaugural "Corporate Lawyer of the Year" at the Insider Central and East Dealmakers Awards 2023 and the only lawyer to have been shortlisted “Emerging Dealmaker of the Year” by Insider Central and East Dealmakers Awards 2022, Tom regularly advises on some of the firm’s highest profile transactions.

He has experience of advising all types of businesses, from owner-managed through to large, listed multinational groups having spent more than 5 years at international law firm, Dentons. He has significant experience in complex domestic and cross-border corporate transactions, spanning the tech, retail and manufacturing sectors, with notable expertise in buying and selling motor dealerships, regularly acting for several of the UK’s largest automotive retail groups in the AM top 100. As part of his private equity practice, Tom acts for both PE fund investors and also vendors and MBO teams. His venture capital work has seen him act for founders, start-ups, scale-ups and venture capital funds both in the UK and internationally across a myriad of sectors and at all stages of an emerging growth company's development life cycle.

Recent experience includes:

• Advising a NYSE-listed international Fortune 500 automotive retail group on its on-going program of UK acquisitions and disposals.
• Acting for several of the UK’s largest automotive retail groups on the acquisition and disposal of multiple dealerships across the UK.
• Advising Europe’s leading threat intelligence provider to banks, central banks, financial market infrastructures, governmental and EU agencies, international organisations, and critical national infrastructure operators on its disposal to a Swedish PE backed Danish IT Security Services buyer;
• Advising a global public opinion and data company on the acquisition of a leading analytics, targeting and personalization software solutions company.
• Acting for a WealthTech software company specialising in structured data-driven global asset analysis on an inward multimillion-dollar investment from a leading Canadian investment pension fund through a mixture of secured debt and equity.
• Acting for a fast-growing, award-winning rec-tech client on multiple rounds of multimillion-pound investment from inception through a mixture of UK-based venture capital funds.

Noted in Legal 500 as having an 'affable, down to earth style', clients describe Tom as highly competent and pragmatic, with his practice spans a wide range of corporate transactions, including; acquisitions and disposals, private equity transactions, joint ventures, group reorganisations, restructurings and corporate governance matters.