England - London • Finance

Slaughter and May

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The ‘extremely, knowledgeable and dedicated’ team at Slaughter and May provides a ’faultless service’ to the firm’s blue riband roster of investment grade corporates across the full spectrum of their debt financing requirements. Led by Matthew Tobin, the firm has been an invaluable resource to clients from a range of sectors as they have sought to navigate difficult macroeconomic conditions, and have been able ‘to use their prior experience to obtain the best outcomes’. The scope of the work is broad and includes advice on general corporate lending, acquisition finance and refinancings, with a significant proportion of recent transactions including pricing ratchets conditional on meeting various ESG-related key performance indicators. The ’very capable’ Robert Byk is experienced at handling sustainability-linked loans, as well as more conventional loans, including as it relates to structured acquisitions and bid financings. Sustainable metrics also inform a considerable amount of Caroline Phillips‘ workflow for corporate clients, which she advises across a range of loan and debt capital markets transactions. Aligned to the firm’s generalist ethos, Ed Fife’s eclectic offering includes borrower side advice on treasury matters and bid finance transactions, as well as some work for lenders, including in an acquisition finance context.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • 'Best in class lawyers. Faultless service - friendly, responsive and organised.'
  • 'Ed Fife is extremely bright, commercially astute, flexible lawyer who runs a fantastic team, with particular call out to the more junior associates who seem to operate well above their years of qualification. Ed is also able to have a laugh and a joke along the way which is important in those stressful deal situations.'
  • 'It is an extremely, knowledgeable and dedicated team.'
  • 'They are absolute experts in the area with ability to use their prior experience to obtain the best outcomes.'
  • 'Robert Byk is a very capable practitioner with an effective ability to move the transaction along.'

Key clients

  • Agility
  • Asos
  • Athora
  • Cineworld
  • Coats
  • Diageo
  • Deutsche Bank
  • GSK
  • Hammerson plc
  • HG Vora Capital Management LLC

Work highlights

  • Advised INEOS, a global chemical and energy company, in a series of financing matters across a number of its different business divisions for the value of £3.5bn across four different loans
  • Supported Diageo plc and its pension schemes through a period of extreme volatility caused by the market’s reaction to the UK government’s mini budget delivered in September 2022 across two loans for £1bn
  • Advised Schneider Electric SE, the French industrials group, on its public offer to acquire the remaining shares in AVEVA plc.

Lawyers

Leading individuals

Matthew Tobin

Slaughter and May

Partner; Matthew is Head of our Debt Capital Markets practice. He advises on a wide range of banking and financing work, including acquisition and bid financing, capital markets and securitisation transactions. Matthew also leads our Sustainable Finance practice which has advised on several green bonds issued by banks and multinationals and also green loans.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Matthew Tobin

Other key lawyers

Ed Fife, Robert Byk, Caroline Phillips, Guy O’Keefe, Azadeh Nassiri, Susan Hughes, Claire Cooke, Charlie McGarel-Groves