Advanced Takeover Code

• Very knowledgeable trainer with over 20 years of corporate finance experience
• Trainer has advised on both recommended and hostile UK public takeovers
• Advanced course covering strategy and tactics as well as key rules
• Course contains many recent takeover case studies
• Issues are also illustrated with examples from personal experience
• Course consistently rated excellent by attendees

• Examine the key rules in the Takeover Code, which determine when announcements are needed and how the takeover should be conducted
• Give an update on the Code conditions and timing changes of July 2021
• Understand the rules for the contractual offer and scheme of arrangement structures, their timetables and their advantages and disadvantages
• Consider the requirements of mandatory and partial offers
• Be appraised of the strategies and tactics which bidders have used to initiate recommended and hostile takeovers
• Look at how bidders have conducted and concluded their takeovers and the rules which affect them
• See how target companies have defended themselves both in advance of a bid and during the bid
• Examine the tactics and arguments which both sides employ in hostile bids

The trainer currently provides independent corporate finance advice and assistance to companies and professional firms, and gives advanced corporate finance training on takeovers, London listings and other UK market regulation.

Experience 

The trainer is a UK corporate finance adviser with broad experience of UK equity market regulation. Following a career in the City advising major European companies, for over 10 years now he has been presenting corporate finance training courses on takeovers, London listings and other UK market regulation, as well as providing independent corporate finance advice and assistance to clients and professional firms.

After graduating in modern languages from Downing College, Cambridge, he qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse.

He then spent three and a half years working at S. G. Warburg advising on a wide range of corporate finance transactions before joining Paribas in London, where he spent the next fourteen years, becoming a director and head of cross-border corporate finance. Following this, he spent two years in the London office of Mazars, where he was partner in charge of international corporate finance.

During this period in the City, he gained extensive corporate finance experience and worked with corporate clients from many countries, in particular from the UK and France: he is fluent in French and spent two years working in the head office of Paribas Paris. He has advised on a wide range of complex UK transactions, both medium-sized and large, including public takeovers (e.g. Lafarge/Blue Circle, Infogrames/Gremlin), restructurings (e.g. Eurotunnel), privatisations (e.g. British Telecom), private acquisitions and sales, listings and equity and equity linked issues.

During the last ten years, he has produced and delivered many corporate finance training courses, in particular specialising in the development of the Takeover Code and takeover tactics and stock market regulation for companies quoted in the UK, including the Listing Rules, the Disclosure and Transparency Rules and the Prospectus Rules.

Previous Deals

The trainer has advised on a wide range of complex transactions, both medium-sized and large. These have included the public takeover bid by Lafarge SA for Blue Circle plc, the restructuring of Eurotunnel plc and SA, and the privatisation of British Telecom, as well as private acquisitions and sales, UK listings and equity issues.

Training Style

The trainer draws on his extensive technical knowledge and illustrates subjects with relevant examples from his own experience and other recent transactions.

He encourages interactive discussion and welcomes questions from delegates as well posing them himself in order to ensure that points have been fully understood.

This trainer also teaches Introduction to The Takeover Code, Introduction to the FCA Listing, Disclosure and Transparency and Prospectus Rules &  Advanced FCA Listing Rule.

This course covers key rules in the Takeover Code regulating takeovers and the bid strategies and tactics that are used in the current marketplace.

The tactical advantage that possible bidders have had in takeovers has changed since the Code Review and the course examines the numerous effects this has had on bidder and target strategies.

Participants will learn how takeovers are conducted from the initial stages to the completion or lapsing of the bid and will gain an understanding of which strategies and tactics have and which have not worked. This is illustrated with examples from many transactions including the recent hostile takeover of GKN by Melrose and the on-going contested takeover of Sky by Disney/Fox and Comcast.