England - London • Finance

Linklaters LLP

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Drawing upon an excellent overarching perspective of market trends and expertise across the credit spectrum, Linklaters LLP provides ‘technically excellent, powerfully commercial and extremely responsive’ advice to lenders and borrowers, including on general corporate lending facilities and corporate M&A financings. Oliver Edwards and Toby Grimstone are both popular figures among banks and borrowers as a result of their versatility, which includes considerable structured finance expertise – a skill set that Grimstone uses to particularly good effect on behalf clients in the commodities/mining sector. Ian Callaghan regularly acts for creditors and debtors on large-scale syndicated loan transactions, often involving bespoke structures, for both general working capital purposes, in addition to event-driven M&A. The team also includes Caroline Courtney, who is well-versed across a range of products, including as it relates to syndicated lending and asset finance.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • 'The team provides technically excellent, powerfully commercial and extremely responsive.' 
  • ‘Excellent advice and top notch knowledge of the sector - can work to tight deadlines and have very good resourcing levels.’
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Key clients

  • Barclays
  • Bank of America
  • Citibank, N.A.
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Credit Agricole
  • Goldman Sachs
  • HSBC Bank Plc
  • J.P. Morgan
  • MUFG Bank, Ltd.
  • Nomura
  • Pemberton Asset Management
  • Arcmont
  • Hayfin
  • BNP Paribas
  • UBS

Work highlights

  • Advising Vodafone Group plc and Vodafone Germany on the €7.1bn syndicated term and revolving facilities to be used by a joint venture vehicle as part of, amongst other things, the funding for the voluntary takeover offer for shares in Vantage Towers AG.
  • Advised Brambles Limited, an international supply-chain logistics company, on its debut $1.35bn syndicated revolving credit facility incorporating a €300m swingline facility.
  • Advised a syndicate of banks in relation to the new £300m revolving credit facility for the Ocado Group as part of a £875m debt and equity raising.

Lawyers

Hall of Fame

The lawyers at the very top of the profession, widely known and respected by peers and clients for their longstanding involvement in market-leading work.

Oliver Edwards

Oliver Edwards

Hall of fameLinklaters LLP

Oliver has particular expertise in margin lending and structured facilities and has worked on complex margin loans for many different financial institutions, as well as advising several banks on liquidity financings to other financial institutions. Oliver spent time on secondment working in the legal departments of two leading global financial institutions (Barclays in 2005 and J.P. Morgan in 2010), that provided him with invaluable experience of their internal operations and a deep understanding of their requirements of external lawyers. In addition to his practice role, Oliver is also Linklaters’ UK Diversity Partner.  

Toby Grimstone

Toby Grimstone

Hall of fameLinklaters LLP

Toby specialises in international banking deals. He has wide-ranging knowledge advising banks and borrowers in syndicated and secured bank financings, with a particular focus on corporate lending, event-driven, structured and limited recourse financings (including commodities, structured trade and export financings in emerging markets). Toby leads the firm’s relationship with a number of major mining and banking clients and is one of the firm’s mining sector leaders. Toby is actively involved in the firm’s Africa practice and is also co-head of the firm’s Nigeria desk and a member of the coordinating committee covering the firm’s alliance with South Africa’s premier law firm Webber Wentzel. Toby spent three years in the firm’s Singapore office and was seconded to Credit Suisse (in 2001) and Barclays (in 2007), equipping him with first-hand knowledge of the banking sector and deep insight into the relationship between banks and law firms.

Next Generation Partners

Ian Callaghan

Ian Callaghan

Linklaters LLP

Ian advises corporates, investment banks and alternative credit providers on public and private acquisition financings, cross-border syndicated lending, margin lending, fund financing arrangements and other structured financings. Ian spent eight months on secondment to BNP Paribas’ loan syndication and trading team from 2009 to 2010 and eight months on secondment to Alcentra from 2013 to 2014, assisting their Collateralised Loan Obligation (CLO), direct lending and special situations teams.

Caroline Courtney

Caroline Courtney

Linklaters LLP

Caroline has extensive experience advising corporates, banks, financial institutions and sponsors on a range of complex cross-border financing transactions, including syndicated lending, loan and leasing transactions in the maritime and aviation sectors, acquisition finance, mining and distressed lending. In 2017, Caroline completed an eight-month secondment to the structuring team within the Global Credit Trading division of Deutsche Bank, supporting their special situations (transport, infrastructure and energy), direct lending and credit solutions teams. Caroline practiced in an Irish law firm before joining Linklaters in 2013.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Toby Grimstone, Oliver Edwards

Other key lawyers

David Irvine, Oliver Sceales, Nick Syson, James Martin, Ian Callaghan, William Evans, Caroline Courtney, Chris Medley, Andrew Jennens, Pathik Gandhi, Rohan Saha, Angus Graham, Sam Mahboubian, Atish Shah, Daniel Peach, Shao-Ling Angoh, Tarini Wettimuny, Nikhita Suria, Lizanne Blair