Appreciated for its ‘ambitious, thorough, professional’ team, Maples Group excels in handling bolt-on acquisitions, growth company fundraisings and exits, private equity investments and buyouts and complex cross-border acquisitions and disposals. Practice head Colm Rafferty is praised for his ’superb commercial understanding and industry knowledge’, utilising his deep sector knowledge in company law and corporate transactions to maintain a strong position in the M&A market; he is also highly regarded for his role in advising high-profile Irish tech companies. Morgan Pierse has a breadth of corporate and commercial expertise, with a particularly strong reputation in buy-side and sell-side mandates, while Jordan O’Brien is a key contact for venture capital and tech-related mandates, frequently operating in the private company M&A and equity fundraising spaces.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Mentions
Profile
Work Department
Corporate
Position
Colm is co-head of Maples and Calder's Corporate team in the Maples Group's Dublin office. Colm has extensive experience in company law and corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, venture capital, cross-border mergers and private equity investments. He has been involved in many of Ireland's most significant equity financings and transactions involving Irish private technology companies. Colm also has extensive experience advising institutional financial investors and private equity investors investing in and acquiring Irish assets. His practice includes Irish inward investment projects and other cross border transactions. Colm is a sought after advisor to many of Ireland's most successful venture-backed technology companies, having represented such companies as AMCS, Movidius and Web Reservations.
Career
Colm joined the Maples Group in 2007. He previously worked for a large Irish corporate law firm. Colm has been ranked as a leading corporate lawyer and recommended by a number of directories, including Chambers Global, The Legal 500 and IFLR 1000.
"Excellent and provides high-quality, right on the button advice." (The Legal 500 EMEA 2021)
"Acted on the other side of a transaction to me, but he was results focused, dedicated and high quality" (The Legal 500 EMEA 2021)
"Very good understanding of the Irish tech scene.” (Chambers Global 2020)
"Very sharp, engaged and hands-on in transactions." (Chambers Global 2019)
“Superb – commercial, personable, capable, and tough.” (IFLR 1000 2018)
Memberships
Colm is on the Steering Group for Scale Ireland. Scale Ireland is an independent non-profit providing the bridge between the start-up ecosystem and government.
It's mission is to secure a more supportive policy environment that empowers Ireland’s innovation-driven enterprise to succeed and scale. Supporting Ireland’s innovative companies to scale is essential to safeguarding our collective economic future. The Steering group is made up of a diverse group of respected leaders from across Ireland’s start-up ecosystem.
Colm was a founder and director of the Fintech and Payments Association of Ireland (FPAI).
Education
University College Dublin, Ireland
Content supplied by Maples Group
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘Ambitious, thorough, professional.’
‘Lianne Canty is a superb lawyer and demonstrates experience and commercial acumen well beyond her years of qualification. She is calm under pressure, highly organised, very approachable and personable. I would have no hesitation in recommending Lianne and have no doubt that she will have a long and successful career as a lawyer.'
'James Reidy is highly collaborative and exceptionally pleasant to deal with. He is extremely organised, responsive and supportive. Colm Rafferty is exceptionally well positioned in the market and had superb commercial understanding and industry knowledge.’
‘I have worked with the Maples M&A team for a number of years now, and they recently acted on a sizeable acquisition transaction for our business. I found the team to be consistently commercial, solutions focused, collaborative and approachable. The practice stands out, particularly for understanding our business and for being responsive and proactive. The team is exceptionally well-informed and well-positioned from a commercial perspective and was highly supportive in providing tangible and practical advice.’ ‘We work primarily with Jordan O’Brien, who brings in additional team members and expertise as needed. Overall, it’s a well-resourced firm with coverage across all the key business areas we require.’ ‘We have had great experiences with our transaction document construction and negotiation from Morgan Pierse (Partner) and Shane Divilly. Morgan really is a stand-out for me, he makes himself available for any question and really understands what we care about.' ‘Both Morgan Pierse and Lianne Canty have been instrumental in giving our organisation extremely beneficial advice at the start of our journey. Most importantly, this advice has always been delivered in a timely manner. Timeliness is one thing that I believe stands out for all of our engagements with Maples. When you are hitting the ground running, you don't want to be waiting on advice or documentation. Morgan and Lianne are on top of it.’ ‘Jordan O'Brien is an excellent operator who is incredibly smart, insightful, thoughtful and commercial; he totally "gets" what we want to achieve. He is a great support and partner to us. Colm Rafferty is a very smart and strategic thinker. Very well respected in the industry. Emma Sheehy is a great associate and support to Jordan.’
Key clients
- AIB Alpha Wireless Ltd. AMCS Group Apollo Applied Materials Arena Investors Avolon Beats Medical Brightflag Buymie Technologies BVI Medical Cardinal Capital Group CitySwift Clearlake Capital CME Drilling Code Institute Coinbase Digital 9 Infrastructure EDesk Elio Networks Falcon AM Fifty-Three Six Media FLEETCOR FLYEfit Fortress Investment Group LLC Francisco Partners Management LLC GAM Investments Global Gap Year Student Services Goldman Sachs Goodbody Capital Partners Great Point Partners Gym Plus Coffee Harkness Screens Health XL Heitman International LLC Herdwatch HIS Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ifeel Technology Solutions Kestra Medical LastPass Ireland LearnUpon Lioncor Marathon Asset Management MBK Partners Meili Travel Technology MGG Investment Group Midcap MML Growth Capital Partners Molten Ventures Mortgage Horizons (T/A Doddl) Nearform Nektr Technologies Northwell Health Nory Oaktree One Identify Software Outmin patientMpower Payemoji Prodigy Learning Publicis Groupe Holdings BV Real World Analytics Sanlam Scopely, inc. Sculpted by Aimee Sky Aviation Leasing Spotlight Oral Care ST Engineering SteriPack Group Susquehanna Growth Equity Synova Capital Taly Subscriptions Taoglas Teamwork Tech Mahindra Thermo Fisher Tristan Capital Partners LLP UnitedHealth Group Upland UrbanVolt US CourtScript Holdings, Inc (eScribers) Vela Games Verodat Vista Equity Partners Waterfall Asset Management Wayflyer Wychwood Capital Partners Zinkworks Zyte