Philip Snell > Slaughter and May > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Lauded for its ‘excellent market knowledge and appreciation for their clients’ commercial position’ Slaughter and May provides a ‘service that is second-to-none’ on behalf of the firm’s market-leading borrower focused client base, that include a huge proportion of FTSE 100/250 coporates. The scope of the work is broad and includes advice on general corporate lending, acquisition finance and refinancings, with a significant amount of recent transactions including pricing ratchets conditional on meeting various ESG-related key performance indicators (KPI). Many of the practitioners within the team have had experience of advising on such transactions, including team head Philip Snell who recently advised South32 on a $1.4bn sustainability-linked credit facility, in what was one of the first of such loans in the mining industry. Recognised as a ‘sound advisor through complex transactions in a very challenging environment’, Matthew Tobin is regularly engaged by major corporates on highly strategic mandates, including his export credit-backed £2bn loan provided to British Airways to ease its liquidity problems in the aftermath of the pandemic. Caroline Philips is also a key member of the team and really understands the commercial and legal implications for treasury teams across a range of financings.

Drawing on the expertise of ‘best in class lawyers’ throughout its generalist finance offering, Slaughter and May provides ‘very knowledgeable’ advice to borrowers (including many FTSE listed entities), utilising different finance  products, including TLB, unitranche and loan/high yield bonds, to fund their M&A activity. Philip Snell  heads a team that also includes ‘top-notch banking and finance lawyers’ Edward Fife and Robert Byk  , who plays a key role in the firm’s high end public bid finance practice.