England - London • Corporate and commercial
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M&A: Lower Mid-Market Deals, £100m-£750m

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Akin

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With extensive experience handling cross-border M&A transactions, the corporate practice at Akin is highly adept to assist international businesses on both public and private multijurisdictional mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, investments, and buy-outs. Co-leading the group are Sebastian Rice and Shaun Lascelles – Rice concentrates on M&A, joint ventures, disposals, and restructuring deals for private equity firms, asset managers, energy companies, and corporates, while Lascelles has expertise leading on high-value cross-border M&A, private equity, and international joint ventures. He is predominantly instructed by private equity firms, infrastructure investors, and corporates. Another notable name in the team is Simon Rootsey who focuses on cross-border M&A, private equity, and investment transactions in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. He has deep knowledge of a range of industry sectors including infrastructure, healthcare, and technology. Stephen Rosen, Justin Stock and David Bresnick joined the team from Cooley in July 2024.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘Excellent team with outstanding commercial awareness that takes the time to understand the key issues and needs of the client/deal and work collaboratively.’

  • ‘They are always available and willing to assist in driving a deal to completion without compromising client interests.’

  • ‘I’ve been working with Shaun for over 15 years and have never looked elsewhere as he is superb. He has extensive knowledge of his practice areas, first-class negotiation skills, a pragmatic approach, and quick turn-around. He is extremely personable and always available for discussion.’

  • ‘Simon Rootsey is knowledgeable, personable, commercial, and responsive. He is a brilliant professional whom I would have no hesitation in recommending to others.’

  • ‘An excellent team. They really help push transactions forward and remain focused on solutions to complicated problems. We have worked with them on a number of difficult deals in various jurisdictions and really trust them to deliver when it is most needed.’

  • ‘A resilient and patient team that has handled the multiple curveballs on deals with ease. What I love about this team is they also try to make my business team better - educating them and steering them right when things have gone off-course.’

Key clients

  • Fortenova Grupa D.D.
  • Helios Investment Partners LLP
  • L1 Energy (UK) LLP
  • Nexperia B.V.
  • Pan American Energy S.L.
  • Pharmakon
  • Vitol SA
  • Energy Equation Partners
  • Mubadala Capital
  • Vivo Energy

Work highlights

Advised L1 on an agreement to transfer the majority of Wintershall Dea’s non-Russia related upstream business to London-listed Harbour Energy plc for a total consideration of $11.2 billion.
Advising Helios as selling shareholder on the £850 million initial public offering of CAB Payments plc on the London Stock Exchange.
Advised Fortenova Group TopCo B.V. in relation to the €500 million disposal of the entire issued share capital of its subsidiary, Fortenova Group MidCo B.V. to a new company incorporated on behalf of the non-sanctioned holders of depositary receipts in the equity capital of the Fortenova Group.

Lawyers

Practice head

Sebastian Rice; Shaun Lascelles

Other key lawyers

Simon Rootsey; Dan Walsh; Jing Ng; Chris Beardmore; Stephen Rosen; Justin Stock; David Bresnick; Daniel Wayte