The corporate team at Bristol-headquartered national law firm Burges Salmon are celebrating advising on deals totalling more than £2.5bn last year, despite challenges posed by the pandemic.
The firm’s corporate deals review for 2021 highlights its success in completing transactions across a wide range of sectors and for businesses in the UK and overseas. 
Corporate finance team partner Rupert Weston, pictured, said: “We are delighted to have had a busy year, advising our clients – both domestic and international – on a wide range of transactions across a variety of sectors.”
He said the team had started 2022 with optimism, a healthy pipeline of transactions and in anticipation that many of the key trends of the past year were likely to continue throughout the year.
The deals review breaks down activity by quarter and shows that with many of the 27 deals completed in first quarter were in two sectors that fared well throughout the pandemic – energy and technology.
In the energy sector, the team completed seven deals, including advising London Stock Exchange-listed Bluefield Solar Income Fund on its acquisition of Bradenstoke Solar Park, an operational ground-mounted solar photovoltaic plant, and JLEN, an environmental infrastructure fund, on its acquisition of Gigabox South Road in Dundee, providing the client with “invaluable legal support throughout the transaction, which has resulted in a very smooth process overall”.
Stand-out tech deals in the first quarter included IT consultancy Keep IT Simple being acquired by The Panoply and the sale of cloud-based customer data platform BlueVenn to NASDAQ-listed Upland Software.
Fintech continued to be a key theme throughout the second quarter, with significant platform consolidation in the sector, as illustrated by the team’s work with AIM-listed Nucleus Financial Group on its much-publicised takeover by James Hay.
Meanwhile, a cross-firm team led by corporate partner Camilla Usher-Clark advised leading specialty chemicals company Element Solutions on its $60m acquisition of H.K. Wentworth Group while the team also advised legaltech company Legatics on its £3m growth financing round from Mobeus.
Another highlight during the quarter was the sale, handled by Burges Salmon, of the Darwin Alternatives’ Bereavement Services Fund to Memoria’s nationwide portfolio of crematoria and memorial parks and low cost funeral.
Darwin Alternatives chairman James Penney said: “The team at Burges Salmon could not have worked harder on our behalf to achieve a successful outcome.”
The market remained strong, competitive and busy throughout the third quarter – demonstrated by the fact that, at end of the quarter, the value of the deals completed was higher than for the whole of 2020.
This was fuelled in part by ‘dry powder’ on corporate balance sheets, as well as levels of private equity activity not seen since 2017.
Burges Salmon remained particularly active in the clean energy sector, driven by the UK’s continued push towards Net Zero – both across traditional infrastructure such as wind, solar and battery storage, together with newer developing technologies such as hydrogen.
It also benefitted from the ongoing consolidation among financial services platform providers, together with those looking to break into the sector through acquisition.
Tech-focused transactions continued during quarter, with the corporate team acting on transactions across sectors ranging from life sciences to user experience and data analytics providers.
The energy team advised Macquarie’s Green Investment Group on its acquisition of a battery storage portfolio from developer Capbal and worked with long-standing client Embark Group on its £390m sale to Lloyds Banking Group.
Embark Group CEO Phil Smith said the deal was hugely significant as it provided the perfect opportunity to create a market leading proposition for consumers, intermediaries, and strategic partners.
“We are hugely grateful to the team at Burges Salmon for their excellent service,” he added.
The corporate finance team also advised Genus on its initial acquisition of the share capital of Xelect, as well as helping the founder of Hotjar on the sale of HJ Holdings to Contentsquare SAS.
Activity remained high in the final quarter, with a number of the transactions and processes that the corporate team had been working on through the year coming to a fruition.
While there were a number of tech deals, transactional activity remained strong across a number of sectors, including hospitality, retail and consumer.
A cross-firm team led by corporate finance partner Richard Spink advised on Volpi Capital’s investment in Lightfoot Innovations.
Lightfoot CEO Ru Lyon Taylor said: “The team provided great support to the shareholders throughout the process. They’re clearly highly experienced and were commercial and responsive, helping us to complete the deal in a short timeframe.”
The firm also acted for Zetland Capital Partners to acquire a portfolio of 12 pubs across London from Downing as well as helping it with the acquisition of the Manchester and Holyrood Macdonald Hotels.
One of the final deals of the year was private equity firm Piper’s investment in online retailer and design-led pet accessories brand Omlet.
Omlet founder James Tuthill said of the corporate team: “They are a formidable team whose attention to detail, thoughtfulness and unerring focus on the end result impressed us from start to finish.”
