Browne Jacobson’s banking and finance team announce £1bn worth of deal activity and 25% deal volume growth in the last 12 months

Browne Jacobson’s national banking and finance team have announced a 25% year on year growth in deal volumes for 2021, beating its predicted target of 20%.

Over the last 12 months, the team which is made up of 14 specialist banking lawyers advised on over 300 transactions across various sectors including healthcare, private equity, financial services and tech. The deals have a combined value of £1 billion. Some of the highlight deals include advising:

• NatWest and HSBC on funding provided to Dovehaven Care Homes, a North West care home group;
• Complete Detection Systems on its funding from Beechbrook Capital to support its acquisition of Genex Limited and its future buy and build strategy;
• Lloyds Development Capital on senior debt facilities provided by Clydesdale Bank (trading as Virgin Money) in relation to the MBO of Kingswood Corporation;
• NorthEdge on the buyout of ICP and negotiating debt facilities from Santander;
• Santander Growth Capital team in the North West on facilities provided to Nemesis Now Limited.

Full transaction update

The team sits alongside the firm’s national corporate finance practice and was awarded a host of industry accolades throughout 2021 including, the coveted ‘Corporate Law Firm of the Year’ award at the Midlands Dealmakers Awards and ‘Regional Legal Adviser of the Year’ at the European Private Equity Awards.

In 2021, the banking & finance team boosted its offering in the North West with the key appointment of partner and new head of banking & finance in Manchester, Graham Ball.

Paul Ray, partner and head of the national banking & finance practice at Browne Jacobson, said: “Over the last 12 months, our team continued to demonstrate the strength in its deep-rooted sector knowledge and talent in anticipating what the UK banking & finance market may do next by advising on a host of complex diverse deals and projects across various key sectors. Particularly, we saw a real spike in activity across the healthcare and private equity sectors which made up over 50% of our entire team’s transactions.

“Although there are clear headwinds in terms of inflation, energy price increases, recruitment and supply chain challenges, there is an underlying feeling that there is a confidence in the UK business market.

“The market remained strong throughout 2021 and is likely to remain in a very healthy state in 2022. This is being driven by strong levels of liquidity, particularly because of the wide range of debt providers operating in the market including banks, alternative debt providers and debt funds. It is a trend that isn’t showing any signs of slowing down in the immediate future.”

Browne Jacobson’s national banking and finance team operates from three of the firm’s five office network including Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham. It is ranked Tier 1 for the East Midlands in independent legal directory, Legal 500. The team acts for a number of UK and international corporates of all sizes, including high growth companies, FTSE 100 companies, institutional investors and entrepreneurs and management teams as well as some of the UK’s leading local authorities and housing associations. The team’s lawyers have extensive experience of advising on acquisition finance, property finance, restructurings, refinancing, asset-based lending and general finance.