Back from my holiday in the US

Hi all. I’ve just got back from my holiday in the US last week so am easing my way back into things!  This was helped by going to Edinburgh last Thursday on our Group retreat.  The Linklaters London office is split into groups by practice area (e.g. Employment, Intellectual Property, Tax, etc) but, due to the size of the Corporate department, we are split into 4 separate groups. Over the past few years our Group (like many of the others) has gone to a city in Europe for a couple of days each year on a retreat. These retreats provide a great mix of teambuilding exercises (this year we "competed" in a version of the Highland Games - clay pigeon shooting, tossing the caber, tug-of-war, etc), whilst also giving us the time to reflect on what has happened over the previous 12 months and look forward to the following year.

On the work front, despite all of the reports in the press about the credit crunch, there is still a lot going on.  For me personally, I am currently working on several deals which are in their early stages. This is always quite an exciting time of a deal as you are learning lots of new things, perhaps about a new client, a type of deal you have not done before or both. Some deals do not proceed past the early stages for commercial (or other) reasons, so it will be interesting to see which of these deals go the full distance over the next few months, and I will keep you updated in my forthcoming blog updates.

All the best

Graham

It’s been an interesting couple of months

It’s been an interesting couple of months on the work front. I’m currently working towards closing the deal which we signed in January and continuing to work on the Kazak deal which I mentioned in my last blog entry. Some weeks have been quite busy whilst others have been less so, which is great for me personally as I moved house a few weeks ago and have rather more to do at home than usual!  Also, we are coming up to the AGM season when big companies hold their annual general meetings at which shareholders can turn up and vote on some of the most important matters concerning the companies they hold shares in.  As a result, I have also been helping a couple of companies with the notices that they need to send to shareholders telling them about their AGM and also certain changes which they will be proposing to their Articles of Association (which is the main document governing how a particular company is run) as a result of the provisions of the Companies Act 2006 which are now coming into effect.  It's great to do this sort of work in addition to big corporate transactions as it helps you keep up to date with changes in general company law. Oh, and I am also looking forward to Easter in a couple of weeks and then a two week holiday to the US in April!

I hope you are all well and enjoying 2008

I hope you are all well and enjoying 2008 - I can't quite believe that one month has gone already. January can be quite a quiet month on the work front as people ease their way back in after the Christmas break but this one has been quite hectic for me as we agreed a deal to sell an industrial plant for one of our biggest clients. I have also just started working on a Kazak acquisition, so I am looking forward to the opportunity of getting my thermals on and hopping over there if the opportunity arises. Speaking of cold weather, I also went on our Corporate ski trip in Megeve in France last weekend along with around 40 other colleagues. It was great fun (both the skiing and après ski) but perhaps I stayed out a little too late once or twice as I am feeling a bit tired this week, although I can't wait for next year's trip!

That's all for now.

All the best.

Graham

Work has taken a bit of a back seat...

Work has taken a bit of a back seat over the last few weeks as over 150 of us in the office have been growing a moustache in aid of prostate cancer research during the month of “Movember”.  Our London office is quite big and, although I know a lot of people here, it is impossible to know everyone.  However, as I have been walking around the corridors there have been nods of appreciation from fellow Mo growers and lots of smiles/giggles from non-Mo growers.  It seems the days when the moustache represented a fashionable statement are long gone.  In fact, clients have very much enjoyed having a laugh at my expense over the past few weeks and it is difficult to maintain credibility in meetings.  Nevertheless, it has been great fun (including the self-congratulatory drinks events we have held) and, at the last count, the firm had raised almost £50,000 for the charity.

The party season is fast approaching and you can sense people gearing up for it. I am currently working on a private sale of a business for one of our biggest clients which should, together with various lunches, keep me busy over the next few weeks until I head off to France skiing for a week.

It's been a busy few weeks...

It's been a busy few weeks since my last blog entry on the work front. At the start of October we completed a deal that we have been working on for several months which was really satisfying.  For a lot of corporate deals, there are two key milestones: signing and completion.  Signing is when the parties enter into agreement with one another (as a result of which they are then legally bound to do certain things), and then completion is when the deal is actually concluded.  Signing and completion can be at the same time, but in many cases there is a gap during which certain things need to be done (a typical example is the need to get competition clearance from the EU, which usually takes a couple of months but can take several).  The deal we completed was the establishment of a bio fuels joint venture between our client and another UK company.  It was a fascinating deal to be involved in as bio fuels have been in the news quite a lot this year. I was able to learn a lot about what the business entails - in our case, it concerned the growing of plants which can be used to produce oil which can then be added to conventional petrol and used to run cars.   

Now that particular deal has finished, I am actually working on another joint venture which will hopefully sign quite soon. Joint ventures are different from sales and takeovers as the parties involved are entering into a form of partnership, usually because they think they will be better off working together than competing with each other in a certain field.  As a corporate lawyer you have to help the parties achieve this while making sure your client has the protections it needs if things go wrong!