Law firm Squire Patton Boggs adds leveraged finance partner in London
Law firm Squire Patton Boggs has appointed Chris Hastings (pictured) as a partner in its financial services practice group in London.
Hastings, who joins from Eversheds Sutherland, is focused on leveraged and acquisition financing. He acts for private equity firms and their portfolio companies, corporate borrowers, and for private credit funds in relation to transactions at all levels of capital structures.
His experience covers complex domestic and international transactions in support of M&A activity, leveraged buyouts, refinancing and distressed or opportunistic investments.
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Hastings has acted for Inflexion on its acquisition of a minority stake in social media marketing agency Goat (and subsequent sale to WPP); for Aurelius on its carve-out of UK property services provider TM Group from Dye & Durham; and for Pollen Street Capital on the acquisition of Assessio, a talent assessment software platform in the Nordics.
Recent private credit mandates have included advising the London-based teams of Tresmares Capital and Eurazeo on mid-market direct lending mandates to support domestic and international private equity-backed businesses.
“The opportunities nationally and internationally are considerable, with private equity sponsors continually seeking financing for acquisitions,” said head of Squire’s private equity practice in Europe Paul Mann.
“Chris’ technical skills, commercial outlook and international connections, perfectly complement our well-established private equity group. And he shares our ethos of working in a collaborative manner to deliver the very highest quality service.”
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European managing partner Jonathan Jones added: “[Hastings’] is an outstanding finance lawyer with a strong track-record of working on strategic investments for a wide range of mid-market private credit and private equity clients and supporting their portfolio companies throughout their investment life cycles.”
This hire is part of an ongoing commitment to growing the firm’s private equity and financial services practices. The private equity group has trebled in size over the past two years, with appointments of new partners and associates in London, Birmingham, Paris, Milan, Madrid and Frankfurt.
It also announced the launch of two new, private equity-focused offices in Dublin and Amsterdam earlier his year.
Commenting on his appointment, Hastings said: “[Squire Patton Boggs] has such a strong international platform and an impressive record in the private equity and private capital markets. It is rare, even among the best international firms, to see a team so closely integrated, working so dynamically with an entrepreneurial ambition for their clients.”
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