David Shearer > Norton Rose Fulbright > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Norton Rose Fulbright has ‘excellent in-depth knowledge of structured products and derivatives‘ and is praised as ‘highly commercial and pragmatic‘. The firm is known for its advice on structured total return swap and repo financing, emerging markets transactions, Islamic derivatives practice, and securitisation hedging. Its structured products work also encompasses large repack programmes for global banks, as well as the issuance of structured notes. Nigel Dickinson, ‘one of the best practitioners in the field’, and Yusuf Battiwala co-lead the practice, which benefits from the extensive knowledge of global head of financial services and regulation Jonathan Herbst. Also playing pivotal roles in the practice are market infrastructure, derivatives, and fintech specialist Hannah Meakin, covered bond and structured finance expert David Shearer, and key adviser to Canadian issuers Peter Noble.

Norton Rose Fulbright is ‘technically brilliant in terms of pure securitisation‘, and has a strong track record in high-value, unusual or first-of-a-kind transactions. Its work spans covered bonds, trade receivables, SME lending and restructurings, as well as residential mortgage and CRE structured finance deals. Head of capital markets Peter Young and lead securitisation partner David Shearer lead a strong group of partners, among them the vastly experienced Christian Lambie, and Peter Noble, whose work for one major Canadian bank included more than $5bn in covered bond issuance. Shearer recently acted for a global investment bank as arranger and dealer in connection with a €10bn covered bond programme. Rae Parsons is also a key member of the practice, having assisted Shearer with two separate programme updates and maturity extensions for a European issuer’s multibillion-euro covered bond. The team works closely with the firm’s infrastructure finance group on renewable energy financings, which led to its involvement in one of the first solar securitisations in Europe.