Contributors
The Newcastle-based corporate team at Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) has been shortlisted for a variety of awards at this year's Insider North East Dealmakers Awards. The firm, its corporate lawyers and the deals it advised on, are nominated in five separate categories.
WBD is shortlisted for Corporate Law Firm of the Year; having advised on more than 50 transactions with a combined value of c. £1.5bn over the judging period.
In additional to some of the deals that were themselves nominated for awards, other deal highlights over the award period include advising:
- Grainger plc, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord, on its £57m acquisition of The Forge, its first significant purpose built private rented sector scheme acquisition in Newcastle
- Longstanding client Atom on a further fundraise
- Pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Arcinova on the sale of the business to Quotient Sciences.
Three transactions the firm advised on have also been nominated for individual deal awards:
- Shortlisted for the Private Equity/Venture Capital Deal of the Year are:
- Meanwhile, the sale of winning independent retailer Psyche to retail giant Frasers Group, owned by renowned entrepreneur Mike Ashley, is shortlisted in the Deal of the Year (below £10m) award category.
Two lawyers in the WBD team are shortlisted on an individual basis including partner Ben Butler who is nominated for both Dealmaker of the Year and Corporate Lawyer of the Year. Stacey Hall, who last year won the Emerging Dealmaker of the Year award, is also nominated in Corporate Lawyer of the Year.
Ben Butler, corporate partner at WBD, comments:
"These nominations highlight a very successful year for our Newcastle corporate team and demonstrate our commitment to the region and the exciting and fast-growing North East businesses we work with.
"As we have been navigating our way our through the COVID-19 pandemic in the past 18 months, I am very proud of all that our talented team has achieved, demonstrating great resilience, confidence and innovation to support our clients' growth and keep transactions moving despite the numerous national and regional lockdowns."
As the largest law firm in the North East, WBD has deep roots in the region and its largest UK office of over 400 professionals is based in Newcastle. The firm is committed to playing its part in the future prosperity of the North East and Cumbria by using its local, national and international reach and expertise to benefit the region's leading sectors, businesses, people and organisations.
WBD has a large corporate practice in the UK advising clients on a broad range of corporate transactions, particularly M&As, IPOs, MBOs joint ventures, private equity investments as well as growth and development capital fundraisings. In Newcastle, the team is ranked as a top tier firm in both legal directories Chambers UK and Legal 500.
