Richard has a wide-ranging financing practice covering bank lending (both investment grade and leveraged), debt capital markets, securitisations and structured finance. He is head of the firm’s Securitisation practice. Richard has acted for many high profile clients, including both listed and private companies, banks and other financial institutions, pension funds, private equity firms (and their portfolio companies) and various governments.
Richard has experience across a wide number of industries, including the banking, consumer credit and wider financial sector, insurance, leisure and hospitality, automotive, construction, retail and energy and natural resources.
Recent highlights include advising:
- NewDay Cards Ltd on the establishment, amendment and refinancing of over two dozen private securitisation facilities and public securitisation issuances (via two different master trust structures), covering (variously) credit cards, store cards, instalment credit and unsecured personal loans, as well as the associated acquisition and disposal of certain receivables portfolios funded by such structures. These structures have included traditional term notes, variable funding notes and interest rate and cross-currency swaps.
- Blue Motor Finance in relation to an issuance by Azure Finance No.3 plc of £263 million of notes and residual certificates, backed by a portfolio of auto hire purchase agreements.
- Financiera El Corte Inglés (a joint venture between El Corte Inglés and Santander) on the establishment of a securitisation of store card and point-of-sale receivables originated in Spain.
- Intact Financial Corporation and RSA Group on the buy-in concluded between Pension Insurance Corporation and the Trustees of two defined benefit pension schemes sponsored by the RSA Group, insuring in total c.£6.5 billion of liabilities and covering the pensions of 40,000 members. At the time, this was the largest ever bulk annuity transaction transferring risk from pension schemes to an insurer.
- Watches of Switzerland on its entry into a new £225 million multicurrency revolving credit facility agreement.
- A group of financial institutions as lenders to a leading global logistics group in connection with its acquisition by a consortium of private equity funds. The financing included term, revolving and bank guarantee facilities, as well as the ability for the borrower to increase those facilities or obtain new facilities in certain circumstances, with a multi-jurisdictional guarantee and security package.
- A private credit fund as lender to a sponsor-backed company engaged in the provision of social care.
Richard is ranked in Legal 500, 2023 for Securitisation, where he is described as ‘a very technical and hands-on partner who is very reliable and a pleasure to work with’.