Robert Byk > Slaughter and May > London, England > Lawyer Profile

The ‘extremely, knowledgeable and dedicated’ team at Slaughter and May provides a ‘faultless service’ to the firm’s blue riband roster of investment grade corporates across the full spectrum of their debt financing requirements. Led by Matthew Tobin, the firm has been an invaluable resource to clients from a range of sectors as they have sought to navigate difficult macroeconomic conditions, and have been able ‘to use their prior experience to obtain the best outcomes’. The scope of the work is broad and includes advice on general corporate lending, acquisition finance and refinancings, with a significant proportion of recent transactions including pricing ratchets conditional on meeting various ESG-related key performance indicators. The ‘very capable’ Robert Byk is experienced at handling sustainability-linked loans, as well as more conventional loans, including as it relates to structured acquisitions and bid financings. Sustainable metrics also inform a considerable amount of Caroline Phillips‘ workflow for corporate clients, which she advises across a range of loan and debt capital markets transactions. Aligned to the firm’s generalist ethos, Ed Fife‘s eclectic offering includes borrower side advice on treasury matters and bid finance transactions, as well as some work for lenders, including in an acquisition finance context.

Slaughter and May has ‘a strong team that has a good knowledge of the market‘. The firm is a market-leading adviser to issuer clients, particularly those listed in the UK, on debt issuance. Indeed, over the last three years the firm has acted for more FTSE250 issuer clients than any other firm. Its clients come from a vast range of sectors, and among them are pharma giant, GlaxoSmithKline, energy companies Drax and Norsk Hydro, and charity International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm). Newly appointed practice head Caroline Phillips has a strong financial institution issuer client base. She acted for Standard Chartered Plc on the update of its $77.5bn debt issuance programme. Matthew Tobin frequently assists Westpac Banking Corporation and its New Zealand-incorporated subsidiary, Westpac New Zealand Limited with DCM transactions. He also worked with key partners Edward Fife and Kevin Howes on IFFIm’s £250m debt offering. Guy O’Keefe handled the update of Euroclear Bank’s €20bn certificate of deposit programme. Robert Byk is ‘a great negotiator‘ and emerging partner talent Charlie McGarel-Groves is ‘very competent, knows the markets well and is pleasant to work with‘.

Led by Matthew Tobin, Slaughter and May‘s borrower-focused generalist financing practice regularly handles acquisition finance mandates for the firm’s impressive roster of FTSE 100 and 250 clients, which are appreciative of its versatility across many different finance products, including TLB, unitranche and loan/high yield bonds. The team also excels at handling public takeover work, an area in which Robert Byk is particularly accomplished and well-versed at handling “certain funds” public bid finance.