Transaction Landmark Highlights Strength Of Team

The Banking & Finance team within the Birmingham office of national law firm, Irwin Mitchell, has announced it has advised on over 90 transactions with an aggregate value of £1.2bn since it launched 15 months ago.

Headed up by partner Jon Bew, the team has experienced considerable growth recently on its way to reaching its latest milestone. The transactions on which it has advised in the last quarter account for more that £500m of that alone.

The department, which acts on a wide range of domestic and cross-border financing arrangements, provides advice on mainstream term and revolving loan facilities. It also has a particular specialism in asset based lending (ABL), including trade, inventory and equipment finance as well as supplier finance.

Launched last year following the appointments of Jon Bew, Natalie Barnes, Nicola Raine and Leanne Galloway, the team regularly advises UK clearing banks and their subsidiaries, asset based lenders, independent specialist financiers and US and European lenders. It is also working on an increasing number of borrower side transactions driven by the recent arrival of the corporate team of Nick Dawson and Rob Laugharne into the Birmingham office.

Key to the success and growth of the team is the variety of transactions that it advises on.  The team has advised on a significant number of sub-£5m asset based lending arrangements, funding local businesses as well as a number of transactions involving global entities with £200m plus facilities. The team has also worked alongside a number of financial institutions to develop and bring to market new products, particularly in the supplier and vendor finance arena.

The team advised ABN AMRO Commercial Finance on the multi-million pound funding of the acquisition by Shandong Yongtai and Shropshire-based TIA (GB) Treadsetters Ltd and working capital requirements of Coventry-based automotive supplier Covpress. It also worked with Centric Commercial Finance on the transaction that saw Arlington Industries Group acquire Remploy Automotive from government ownership, and advised on new product development with Macquarie Bank on supplier and vendor finance programmes.

Jon Bew, partner and head of the Banking and Finance team in Birmingham, said: “To reach this deal value milestone highlights not only the strength of the team here in Birmingham but also the trend of recovery that we are all witnessing.

“We are proud to have represented lenders and borrowers on some bespoke, ground-breaking and very significant, but usually confidential, financial arrangements, many of which originate from working with local funders and the local business community in the Midlands. We very much hope that we continue to work with all of our business partners and have another strong year in 2014 and beyond.”

The news about the deal milestone comes at a time of significant investment by Irwin Mitchell in growing its Business Legal Services team in Birmingham. In addition to the arrival of Nick Dawson and Rob Laugharne, Irwin Mitchell has also recently added new Corporate and Commercial partner, Sarah Riding, and boosted its finance litigation team with the arrival of senior associate Fiona Hayles.