The Legal 500

London: Corporate and commercial

Flotations: small and mid-cap

Flotations: small and mid-cap - ranked: tier 4

Marriott Harrison LLP

Marriott Harrison LLP’s extensive coverage of the AIM Market sees its team handle a wide range of matters, ranging from pre-IPO fundraises and AIM listings to follow-on offerings, reverse takeovers and regulatory compliance issues. The practice had an active 2016, with the firm securing new mandates from institutional clients such as N+1 Singer, Shard Capital Partners and Cairn Financial Advisers. Recent highlights include advising Northland Capital Partners as sole broker and NOMAD on the £13m AIM IPO of SalvaRx, and acting for finnCap as the NOMAD and broker on a £3.5m placing by RedT Energy. It also has a strong following of corporate clients, including Fulham Shore, Imaginatik and Volvere. Simon Charles leads the team.

[back to top]

M&A: smaller deals, up to £50m

M&A: smaller deals, up to £50m - ranked: tier 1

Marriott Harrison LLP

Marriott Harrison LLP’s ‘very reliable, practical and supportive’ department provides ‘very good service’. Department head Jon Sweet assisted Kaplan International Holdings with its purchase of MPW TopCo, and advised the shareholders of Pocket Living on their sale of a 50% stake in the company to The Related Companies. The ‘very straightforward, sensible’ Jonathan Leigh-Hunt is singled out for ‘guiding clients through the minefield of due diligence’; he assisted International Schools Partnership with its purchase of Marlborough Group, and advised Audiotonix on its £5m purchase of Group One. Ben Devons and Jonathan Pearce provide ‘very valuable advice’; Devons acted for Easypack on its sale to Pregis, while Pearce advised New Pictures on its sale to All3Media. The ‘diligent, thoughtful, extremely helpful’ Daniel Jacob assisted MARC with its purchase of Dailyrare; Bruce Jones advised Amaury Sport Organisation on its £8m purchase of Human Race Group. Recent client wins include WashStation, Devono Property, Ethico Healthcare, IB Hotels and Emerson Mills; Cello Group, Nasstar, Procam and Amplience are more longstanding clients.

[back to top]

Venture capital

Venture capital - ranked: tier 3

Marriott Harrison LLP

Recognised for its ‘in-depth understanding of start-ups’, Marriott Harrison LLP provides ‘very direct and commercial advice’ to investee and investor clients within the technology sector at all stages of the funding process. ‘Very approachable’ team head Andrew Wigfall is ‘at ease in any situation and can comfortably get his point across’. Recognised, in particular, for his ‘very good investor practice’, Wigfall regularly acts for clients including Balderton Capital and Accel Partners, recently advising the latter as lead investor on the $10m investment round into JobToday, the service industry hiring app. The ‘approachable, knowledgeable, responsive and absolutely trustworthy’ Daniel Jacob has a focus on the investee side and handles investments ranging from seeds enterprise investment scheme (SEIS) through to Series A; Jacob recently advised CloudMargin on its investment round by two syndicates of investors and fintech venture capital fund Illuminate Financial Management. The ‘responsive, knowledgeable and commercial’ Jonathan Leigh-Hunt handles a significant flow of work for Mobeus Equity Partners, including recently acting for it as lead on a £2.1m Series A investment in mpb.com, a UK-based marketplace for photographers and videographers to trade equipment. Ben Devons provides ‘commercial and very detailed advice’ to start-ups from a range of sectors including media, retail, manufacturing and technology. Other clients include Sapphire Ventures, Frontline Ventures, Audiotonix and Amplience.

[back to top]

London: Dispute resolution

Commercial litigation

Commercial litigation - ranked: tier 8

Marriott Harrison LLP

‘A great choice for commercial litigation work’, Marriott Harrison LLP specialises in director, shareholder and company disputes; it successfully defended Minco, in its role as junior explorer partner in a mining joint venture, and two of its directors, against a claim brought by an investor. Tamar Halevy ‘probes every aspect of a case with great care’.

[back to top]

London: Finance

Debt capital markets

Debt capital markets - ranked: tier 4

Marriott Harrison LLP

At Marriott Harrison LLP ‘the level of service is of the highest quality in every area and the team is very pleasant to deal with’. Andrew Williamson and Nils Reid, who joined in 2015 from defunct Scottish firm McClure Naismith LLP, ‘make a great team; their client-management skills are the best in the business’. The firm has a strong presence among corporate issuers in deals up to £50m, though the team of two partners and two associates does handle significantly larger deals on occasion. For example, they handled a $200m secured bond listed on the Irish Stock Exchange Global Exchange Market for Queensway Investments. Clients appreciate the ‘partner-led service from people who are businessmen as well as lawyers’.

[back to top]

London: Real estate

Commercial property

Commercial property: general - ranked: tier 7

Marriott Harrison LLP

Commercial property: hotels and leisure - ranked: tier 4

Marriott Harrison LLP

The ‘overall level of service is very good’ at Marriott Harrison LLP, where the team remained active in the development sub-sector for clients such as British Land and Burney Group. Highlight mandates included advising Templar Commercial Property on the redevelopment of a landmark building in Bristol, and acting for RAM Capital on the redevelopment and re-gearing of Bradbeers Retail Park in Hedge End, Hampshire. The practice also has presence in the hotel-and-leisure sector where it advised on various hotel, restaurant and cinema deals, including acting for Peckham Refreshment Rooms on a lease for an adjoining unit in Peckham Rye. Names to note include ‘very helpful’ head of practice Mark Lavers, Guy Hitchin and Vivienne Elson, who shows ‘meticulous attention to detail’.

[back to top]

London: TMT (technology, media and telecoms)

Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology

Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology - ranked: tier 4

Marriott Harrison LLP

Marriott Harrison LLP added a strong life sciences capability when it merged with Denoon Legal, which resulted in the arrival of Alexander Denoon and Julian Hitchcock in 2017. It is praised for its ‘excellent industry knowledge’, ‘responsiveness’, and ‘proportionate, practical and commercial advice’. It continues to handle regulatory, licensing and commercial matters for a large number of clients including Boehringer Ingelheim, CellNovo, Omixy and Renishaw, and advised a French medical devices company in a potential judicial review against a UK body regarding its decision to issue a suspension notice in respect of its medical devices. Denoon and Hitchcock are highly recommended for pharmaceuticals regulation, medical devices and advanced therapy medicinal products, as well as commercialisation of IP.

[back to top]