Corporate and commercial
Counting private equity houses, management teams, and investee companies amongst its key clients, Stephenson Harwood has extensive experience in advising on management buyouts and multi-jurisdictional M&A transactions. The practice showcases considerable strength in the life sciences and tech sectors, alongside a growing focus on the management software field. Sarah de Ste Croix spearheads the outfit from London, whilst Jonathan Pittal concentrates on cross-border investments. The ’standout’ Malcolm MacDougall primarily concentrates on private equity deals, Adam Crossley acts for founders and portfolio companies, and Richard Coleman is a decarbonisation expert.
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Profile
Work Department
Corporate
Position
Malcolm is a corporate lawyer specialising in private equity transactions ranging from acting for private equity houses in the mid-market and lower mid-market, to acting for management teams on large-cap PE deals. Malcolm’s experience covers all aspects of private equity deals, including MBOs, MBIs, bolt-on acquisitions, investments and exits.
Malcolm acts for PE houses such as Elysian Capital, FPE Capital, bd-capital and Agathos Management as well as growth capital providers such as BGF and investee companies such as Civica (recently acquired by Blackstone from Partners Group) and management teams.
Malcolm has recently advised on Advancing Eyecare’s acquisition of Birmingham Optical Group (Advancing Eyecare is backed by New York based private equity house, Cornell Capital) and Vortex Companies’ acquisition of McAllister Bros (Vortex Companies is backed by Virginia based private equity house, Quad-C).
Malcolm has supported Agathos Management on multiple transactions, including their investments in Plowman Craven, Targeted Provision and Lexxic, the acquisition by Lexxic of Do-IT Solutions and the acquisitions by Targeted Provision of ASEND and SENse Learning.
He supported the management team of Hyva on the sale to JOST Werke SE, the management of Opus Capita on its sale by PSG Equity to GEP, the management team of Nalanda Global, which was backed by PSG Equity, on its sale to GTCR's portfolio company Once For All, and the management team of Mapal on the sale by PSG Equity of a majority stake to Eurazeo.
Malcolm featured in The Lawyer Hot 100 2019 and was the most prolific M&A lawyer in the UK in 2018 and 2020 (mergermarket).
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Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘Stephenson Harwood have always provided superb service. They have strong international capabilities through their network. Their support through transactions is always well structured and they proactively plan to manage bottle necks to meet timetables with key issues identified and managed early.’
‘Malcolm MacDougall is a standout Partner. He manages his team well and brings the team along with his commerciality and is able to draw on his vast experience.’
Key clients
- Agathos Management Alcuin Capital Partners Apposite Capital Bain Capital Bd-capital BGH Bestport Private Equity Bowmark Capital BGF Blandford Capital Capiton Capvis Cityfleet Networks/ Comfort del Gro Civica Group (backed by Blackstone) Coniston Capital Elysian Capital Management team of EMAS Pharma EMERAM Capital Partners ESO Capital Five Arrows FPE Capital James Gorfin (founder of G2V Group) Horizon Capital Inktavo Management team of Lebara Longevity Partners Macquarie Morgan Stanley Nalanda Global Novus Private Equity Opus Capita Osprey Investors Papirfly Group Pelican Capital PSG Equity Quad-C Management, Inc. Rockpool Investments Schroders Standard Life Aberdeen Star Capital TruArc Partners Unigestion SA Verdane Advisors
Work highlights
Advised CityFleet Networks, a subsidiary of the Singaporean-listed multinational company ComfortDelGro, on its acquisition of Addison Lee.
Advised Bowmark Capital on its partnership with Transparity, a high-growth Microsoft services partner.
Advised Agathos Management LLP on its majority investment in Plowman Craven, one of the UK’s largest surveying companies.