About

Nord Anglia Education is the world’s leading premium school organisation, with campuses located across 28 countries. Jodie Coutts is the chief legal officer and leads a team of nine core members with two additional dotted line reports based in Shanghai. The most significant change for the business, and consequently for the NAE legal team, occurred in September 2017 when NAE was taken private and delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Valued at approximately US$4.3bn, including repayment of debt, the transaction was priced at a 33 percent premium over the average closing share price during the 90 calendar days prior to announcement. Being taken private had a significant impact on the business of NAE due to the change in the regulatory requirements from delisting as well as the change in internal processes that came with having new investors and shareholders. The magnitude of the transaction as well as the number of stakeholders involved, meant the legal team played a key role in managing the transaction. ‘Our role included leading the vendor legal due diligence process, across at least 30 jurisdictions involving at least 135 companies and was completed within a period of six weeks, Coutts states. The legal team also led the preparation and filing of the proxy statement and associated documents with the NYSE and also supported on the transaction and finance documentation and completion. Each of these steps involved significant collaboration across many stakeholders, working within tight timeframes. The legal department has also worked on a number of significant acquisitions which are usually very complex for NAE given the regulatory and legal environment for education. Recently the legal team played a pivotal role as part of the deal team in relation to NAE’s investment in a group of five schools in India in February 2019. The deal received significant praise from the NAE leadership team, who recognised the crucial and large role the legal team played in the transaction. In addition to its transactional work, the legal team are also involved in other areas of the business which require legal support, including strategic business partnerships. NAE collaborates with world-leading institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Juilliard School, King’s College London and UNICEF to enhance the learning experiences of its students and teachers. The legal team plays a crucial role in these programmes by working with the business to negotiate and conclude contracts, and work with various internal departments to manage the contracts on an ongoing basis.