Richard Smith

Richard is co-head of our Corporate and M&A Group. His principal areas of work are in public and private M&A, joint ventures and equity capital markets work. Highlights include advising:

• Reckitt on the sale of its Infant Formula and Child Nutrition business in China to Primavera Capital Group for $2.2 billion and the sale of its Scholl footcare products business to Yellow Wood Partners
• Aviva on the sale of its businesses in Poland for €2.5 billion, France for €3.2 billion, Vietnam, Indonesia and Hong Kong and its sale of a majority shareholder in Aviva Singapore to a consortium including Singlife and TPG for cash consideration of SGD 2 billion and a retained 25% shareholding in the new combined group

• Fortress and its investment group on its c.£7bn takeover offer for Morrisons

• OSIsoft and its principal shareholders on its disposal to AVEVA for $5 billion
• Fastball on its disposal of FanDuel to Flutter for $4.2 billion
• Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. on its recommended cash takeover of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc for £4.9 billion
• The Walt Disney Company in relation to its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Inc. and the involvement of Disney and Fox in the takeover battle for Sky plc
• OVO on its acquisition of SSEs UK retail electricity and gas supply business in the UK
• GlaxoSmithKline on its major three-part transaction with Novartis involving the combination of their consumer healthcare businesses to form a new world-leading consumer healthcare business, the acquisition by GSK of Novartis' global vaccines business for $5.25 billion plus milestone and royalty payments, and the sale by GSK to Novartis of its marketed oncology portfolio for $16 billion, and also on GSK’s divestments of certain pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare product brands in several transactions in the US, Europe and Rest of World
• Countrywide, Stock Spirits, Brit, Arrow Global, Watches of Switzerland, certain shareholders of Zoopla and the manager shareholders of Pepco on the IPOs of those companies
• Equinix on its takeover of Telecity for £2.6 billion and the related competition-mandated divestments of certain data centre businesses in London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt to Digital Realty.