Strong year for corporate team at Blake Morgan as it delivers deals with combined value of over £1bn
Blake Morgan is celebrating a very successful year in corporate deal making. The law firm advised on corporate deals with an overall value of over £1bn in the last financial year (ending 30 April 2025), and the Corporate team increased its year-on-year turnover by 10%.
The firm’s Corporate team serves clients across the UK from its offices in London, Cardiff, Southampton, Reading and Oxford. Its lawyers support a broad range of private and public sector clients on matters including mergers and acquisitions, disposals, corporate advisory, public company takeovers, management buyouts, IPOs, joint ventures and restructuring.
It is active across sectors including healthcare, retail, financial services, leisure, technology and recruitment and works closely with the firm’s wider teams including banking and finance, tax, real estate, construction and employment.
The Corporate team has been ranked highly in both the Legal 500 and Chambers guides in recent years, including in Band 1 for Corporate M&A in Wales in Chambers and Tier 1 ranking for Corporate and Commercial across South East – Hampshire, South – Thames Valley, and Wales.
It was awarded Corporate Law Firm of the Year at the Insider Wales Dealmakers Awards 2024 and named as finalists in four categories at the South Coast Deals Awards 2025.
Notable deals the team advised on in 2024/5 included:
- Acting for the shareholders of Zip World, one of the leading adventure tourism businesses in the UK, in connection with the buyout of investor LDC and significant investment by Dolphin Capital
- Advising financial advisory business Foster Denovo on its acquisitions of firms in the wealth management sector, supporting four acquisitions in less than six months
- Advising recruitment company Carrington West on its management buyout to support the evolution of the business
- Advising the Development Bank of Wales in connection with its investment in AI scale-up, Nisien.AI, in the first co-investment between Development Bank of Wales and Investment Fund for Wales
- Acting for L&S Waste Management, a leading construction and demolition waste operator in Hampshire, in its acquisition by Biffa, the UK leader in sustainable waste management
- Acting for Percival Aviation Group Limited on the sale of Percival Aviation Limited and Percival Aviation Limited to Jet Parts Engineering (a US private equity portfolio company)
- Advising French multinational corporation and Fortune Global 500 company Schneider Electric in relation to a group restructuring exercise and the transfer of group entities
- Supporting the purchase by Focus Group of the IT and telecoms business Appa Technical Holdings and its wholly owned subsidiaries Silver Lining Convergence Ltd and Atmoso Limited
- Advising marine business RAD Propulsion on a rolling equity fund raise involving corporates, institutional and private investors, subscribing for new EIS shares and new non-EIS B shares, with total funds raised higher than the initial target
- Advising Wakelin Holdings Limited on the creation of the Emsworth Yacht Harbour Employee Ownership Trust – the UK’s first employee-owned marina – and the subsequent sale of 80% of the issued share capital of Wakelin Holdings Limited to the EOT
- Acting for K3 Business Technology Group plc on:
- its c£34.4 million sale of Nexsys Solutions Limited to Safari UK Bidco Limited, a company controlled by funds managed and/or advised by Advent International, LP and AIM Rule 15 Circular
- a court approved capital reduction and return of up to £29 million to its shareholders by of a tender offer
- Acting for The Smarter Web Company Plc on its IPO and acquisition of The Smarter Web Company Limited
Mike Wilson, managing partner at Blake Morgan, said:
The Corporate team has significantly contributed to our overall growth as a firm over the last year. The team has worked on notable deals and supported both long-standing clients and new ones with whom we hope to maintain ongoing relationships. Our lawyers pride themselves on providing outstanding advice to our clients, supporting them to grow, evolve, and flourish, and the success the team has experienced this year is testament to that.
Simon Staples, who heads up the firm’s Corporate team, added:
It has been an exceptional year for our team both in terms of the volume of the deals we have advised on and the size and nature of those transactions – we’re acting on a growing number of deals across the board ranging from mergers and acquisitions to equity capital markets and private equity matters. We very much thank our clients for entrusting us to work with them on what are pivotal transactions for their businesses.
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