Time to praise people who risk everything

Feb 6 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

WHEN we read about takeovers, management buy-outs or entrepreneurs risking everything to expand their businesses, we probably never stop to think about the professional advisers who help make it all possible. Lawyers such as Gillian Hall are the backbone of these deals and responsible for bringing business and money into the region.

Gillian, a farmer’s daughter from Holywell Village on North Tyneside, has been a partner at law firm Watson Burton, sponsor of the inaugural Journal Deal Awards, for 22 years. She heads the corporate finance department – the deal makers – from head office near the Centre for Life in Newcastle. With a 30-strong team, she also works on corporate deals from its offices in Leeds and London.

She says: “If you want to buy a company or sell a company or have a management buy-out, you come to your corporate finance lawyers and what we do is essentially project manage the deal.

“We bring in other specialists from across the firm because when you buy a company it inevitably has employee issues, pensions implications, health and safety issues or competition issues.

“We are very client focused and client led. The crux is a close partner-client relationship. Our job is to establish what the client wants out of the transaction and to ensure that they get it. …You’ve got to have people skills and experience counts for a great deal.”

Watson Burton, in Newcastle about 200 years, opened its Leeds office in 2005 to expand this corporate finance work.

At Leeds the firm has recruited top lawyers from leading national firms such as Pinsent Masons and Hammonds, including partners Lester Wilson, Andrew Walker and Martin Smith. The next year, the firm opened its London premises in the City at the iconic Lord Foster building known as “the Gherkin”.

The firm employs about 300 people across the three sites. Hall says: “Having a London base has enabled us to further improve our client service and has been very beneficial for our national clients, many of whom have City-based headquarters, and securing such prestigious premises has been very, very important for brand recognition. The Leeds office has grown exponentially over the two-and-half years it has been open and has carried out over 60 major transactions. We have now established ourselves in Yorkshire as a genuine alternative to the other big law firms in Leeds.

“We have significant growth plans, we’re recruiting. The market in Leeds remains positive, the market in Newcastle is steady and we’re very fortunate that the London presence is growing.”

The corporate department – split into corporate finance, business services and corporate recovery (insolvency) – has expanded rapidly. In 1985, it had a handful of staff, but there are now about 30 lawyers working purely in corporate finance.

A “normal” deal will take about eight weeks to seal . Advanced communications mean Watson Burton can deal with clients at national and international levels and compete with City firms. “We have major overseas clients. Our reputation with those clients is well established,” says Hall. Recent deals include US company Federal Signal Corporation’s £57.5m acquisition of IPS Technology, of Hampshire, and PIPS Technology, of Tennessee, managed by Hall and associate Robin Adams, who project manages.

“They’re very exciting times,” she says. “That’s why we thought it was appropriate to get involved in the Deal Awards and we thought that given our history, it was time to give something back, to start looking at entrepreneurs, the people who risk every- thing. It’s time for them to be recognised.

“To an extent, we are local entrepreneurs. Ten years ago we were in old fashioned offices in Collingwood Street. The partners invested heavily … We’ve put our money where our mouth is and brought business to the region.”

Hall, who has a first-class degree from Cambridge and has worked in the City, believes strongly in the region’s quality of life and the importance of retaining North-East talent in the North-East.

“We are North-East born and bred. We’ve been in Newcastle for 200 years and we see ourselves as part of the fabric of the North-East,” she says.