About

Team size: 50

Major legal advisers: Addleshaw Goddard, Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang , DLA Piper, Eversheds Sutherland, Gateley, Pinsent Masons, Shepherd and Wedderburn

Clydesdale Bank acquired Virgin Money in September 2018 in a bid to challenge the country’s largest banks. A year later, however, and its value had more than halved to £2bn, and it rebranded as Virgin Money UK.

GC and company secretary James Peirson oversaw the merger and has been heavily involved in the post-transactional work ever since. The past 12 months have been particularly focused on the court process that allowed for the completion of the combination.

Mergers can sometimes trigger clashes, but Peirson says that while the legal teams of Virgin Money and Clydesdale had different cultures, they were complementary, as were the skillsets of both teams. Peirson comments: ‘Having loads to do has really helped that integration and helped drive that new culture across the team.’

The next 12 months will be focused on integrating the service lines of both businesses, as well as developing new offerings for the company’s core propositions, such as current accounts, personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, savings accounts and business current accounts. ‘We’re making sure we’re living up to high expectations of Virgin Money customers, and pushing ourselves to get behind the development of those customer offerings and redesign some of the technology that sits behind it,’ he comments.

Peirson sponsors the company’s disability inclusion network, which supports people with disabilities from the recruitment stage into the physical environment of the business. The network also considers disability from a customer perspective by working to make sure products are accessible and inclusive for everyone. Virgin Money also has a focus on gender diversity.

Head of client relationships for financial services at Pinsent Masons, Claire Massie, comments: ‘It has gone from being a challenger bank to one of the largest with the Virgin merger. James also leads on diversity and inclusion, and is right at the heart of that. He stands apart at this particular point in time and is one of the best we’ve ever worked with.’

Peirson says there is more work to come from his team in 2020: ‘We’re going to be spending more time over the next 12 months continuing our meticulous approach to mapping out everything the team does and making it work better – our re-engineering programme.’