James Connor

James’ practice focuses on corporate transactions, including both public company takeovers and private M&A, equity capital markets (including IPOs), and a variety of English company law and listed company and corporate governance matters.

• Engagements

  • Graphcore on its sale to Softbank Group Corp
  • brumbrum on its sale to Cazoo Group Ltd
  • Atempo Growth on the establishment of its tech focused venture debt fund and its joint venture arrangements with Banco Santander
  • Busuu on its US$436 million sale to Chegg, Inc.
  • Finimize on its sale to abrdn plc
  • Currencycloud on its £700 million sale to Visa
  • Dream Games, the Turkish based mobile gaming unicorn in connection with its private placement of $460 million preferred shares
  • Kognitiv Corporation on the sale of its Intelligent Shopper Solutions business to IRI
  • Invisio AB on its acquisition of Racal Acoustics
  • RockRose Energy plc in connection with its recommended £248 million cash acquisition by Viaro Energy
  • Aptean, Inc. on its acquisitions of Paragon Software Systems Limited, Systems Integration (Trading) Ltd and Prima Solutions Ltd
  • Aptean, Inc. on its recommended acquisition of Sanderson Group Plc
  • Michelin on its acquisition of the Masternaut Group
  • Melrose on its £8.1 billion hostile takeover of GKN plc
  • Twenty-First Century Fox on aspects of its contested £27 billion offer for Sky plc
  • Blackstone on its acquisition of Cirsa Gaming Corporation and the Ideal Shopping Group and their respective shareholder arrangements
  • KKR on various sales of shares in Pets at Home Group plc for an aggregate £407 million by way of accelerated bookbuilt offerings
  • Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan in connection with Michael Kors' £896 million acquisition of Jimmy Choo PLC
  • Groupe Fnac on its contested £914 million cash and share acquisition of Darty Plc
  • Gates Industrial Corporation on its acquisition of the Techflow Flexibles business
  • Melrose on the sale of its Elster business to Honeywell International for £3.3 billion
  • Aston Martin on its private placement of £200 million preference shares
  • Blackstone and CVC on various sales of shares in Merlin Entertainments plc for an aggregate £1.3 billion by way of accelerated bookbuilt offerings
  • Pets at Home Group plc and KKR on Pets at Home’s £1.25 billion London main market IPO
  • Nanjing Cenbest on its acquisition of a majority stake in House of Fraser
  • Apax, Blackstone, KKR, Permira and Providence Equity on various sales of shares in TDC A/S by way of accelerated bookbuilt offerings
  • KKR on its acquisition of South Staffordshire plc
  • Melrose on the disposal of its Crosby and Acco divisions to KKR for US $1.01 billion
  • First Reserve on the disposal of its majority stake in Acteon Group Limited to KKR for £400 million
  • Arle Capital Partners on its disposal of the Capital Safety Group to KKR for US $1.12 billion
  • Blackstone on its acquisition of the Jack Wolfskin Group for €600 million
  • KKR on its joint investments in Ambea A.B. and Grupo Inaer
  • Standard Life plc on its disposal of Standard Life Bank to Barclays Bank PLC
  • M-real Corporation on the disposal of its graphic paper business to Sappi Limited for €750 million
  • Cadbury Schweppes plc on the demerger of its Americas Beverages business and the listing of Cadbury plc and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. on the London and New York Stock Exchanges respectively