Law Firm of the Year - Transactions

DLA Piper

We advise across the full range of deals, from VC to the largest LBOs and advise all key constituencies – Institutions, Management and Debt Providers (both traditional and debt funds). Through our global platform with key strength in Europe and the UK, we offer our UK clients coverage that no other firm can provide. We also offer a full range of innovative products, including business advisory, ESG, Aiscension and Toko. 

DLA has consistently been recognised for acting on the most European Private Equity buy-outs and exits and this has continued. The market leading management advisory practice had its most successful year, advising on more than 25 deals with a total deal value of more than EUR35 billion. 

In the UK we are a single team of 22 PE focussed partners and 8 LevFin partners, strengthened by the promotion of Philip Allenby to partner in May 2022. Supported by 235 UK partners, an additional 488 in the rest of the International firm and a total of 1,387 globally, we can bring to bear depth and specialist expertise that is difficult to rival. It is why we continue to act for almost the A to Z of PE.

Proskauer Rose

Comprised of 30+ lawyers in London and 100+ globally, Proskauer’s Private Equity Transactions team has one of the premier international practices. The team has a sharp focus on key growth sectors such as financial services (including FinTech, payment processing, insurance and asset manager M&A), TMT (including cyber-risk and data), business services, industrials and consumer (including food and beverage & hospitality), and have gained a reputation for being the ‘go-to’ lawyers for asset managers and fund sponsors. 

Over the past 12 months the team has seen trends in ESG, Technology, Healthcare, Business Services, and Financial Services; GP-led transactions and continuation funds; increase in public-to-private transactions; and mid-market players increasingly looking at minority investments in larger companies. Our Private Equity Transactions team works on 300+ matters annually across the UK, Europe and the Middle East and alongside our colleagues in the US, Asia and South America on cross-border mandates. Key clients in London include: 7Ridge, Abry Partners, AnaCap, Apiary Capital, Ardian, CBPE, Charterhouse, Copper Street Capital, Exponent, FPE Capital, Goldman Sachs, HGGC, ICG, Investcorp, Lexington Partners, Lion Capital, Lovell Minnick, Morgan Stanley, Motive Capital Partners, Oaktree, One Peak Partners, Pantheon, Pollen Street Capital, Rubicon Partners, Schroders, Strategic Partners, Synova, Tikehau and Toscafund. 

Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray deserves to win Law Firm of the Year - Transactions for its standout performance in 2021. 2021 was another exceptionally strong year for Ropes & Gray in London. The firm’s London private equity team contributed significantly to this success. In 2021, the team advised on 105 transactions worth £97 billion, bettering what had previously been their best ever performance in 2020, when they advised on 94 transactions worth £56 billion (a 12% increase on deal volume / 97% increase in deal value).

Squire Patton Boggs

• Our PE Practice continues its high-level growth with expansion across Europe. 
• Our transactional work has seen significant increase this year following a record-breaking 2020/21. The firm deserves this recognition for consistent year-on-year growth, doubling of team, 22% more deals, larger deals, and 10% increase in new clients. 
• The specialist team (26 dedicated PE partners in UK), led by European head of Private Equity Paul Mann (The Lawyer Hot 100 2022), operates from nine UK/EU offices, advising on mid-market cross-border transactions backed by a global platform. 
• Following seven partner hires in UK in 2020-21 (including a new Funds Practice in London) focus has been European team expansion and further investment in UK. 
• Since November 2021 we added 12 new PE lawyers to our European team, in Madrid, Paris and Milan, and new partners imminent in Frankfurt, Paris and UK. 
• We appointed Teresa Zueco (ex-DLA) joining with six new PE lawyers, to lead our group in Spain. This year Teresa is the top transactional lawyer in Spain. 
• In France we added Maxime Dequesne (Lamartine), Anthony Guillaume (DLA), plus PE tax and finance specialists Charles Briand and Benjamin Marché. 
• In Italy we added Sara Belotti (Baker McKenzie) to launch a new PE practice.

Voting is now closed

 To find out who won book a table at the British Private Equity Awards on 04 October 2022 by contacting Chris Coe.