Simon Marchant is a senior partner based in London specialising in public and private mergers & acquisitions, corporate governance and financings and company law generally. Selected transactions over the years include:

  • China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp, a major Chinese state-owned energy company, on its acquisition of Meiya Power Corporation from Standard Chartered Private Equity and Noonday Asset Management MPC;
  • Pearson and The Financial Times on a number of acquisitions and disposals including of Les Echos, Financial Times Deutschland and Mergermarket.
  • the Oppenheimer family on their and Anglo American’s $20bn take private of De Beers;
  • GMG on its and Apax’s $2bn public offer for media group Emap and on GMG’s sale of a stake in Trader Media Group to Apax;
  • Inmarsat, the international satellite group, on its privatisation and on its subsequent sale to a consortium led by Apax and Permira;
  • US utility PacifiCorp’s $9bn sale to Berkshire Hathaway;
  • in the radio sector, Capital Radio on its merger with GWR, Chrysalis plc on the sale of its radio division and SMG on the sale of Virgin Radio;
  • in telecoms, Mannesmann’s $190bn acquisition by Vodafone, O2 on its demerger from BT and other transactions for BT and France Telecom among others;
  • US listed ntl’s $10bn bid for UK media company ITV;
  • The Scott Trust, owner of The Guardian, on its corporatisation;
  • Group 4 Falck’s €1.5bn merger with Securicor;
  • ScottishPower on its public offers for Manweb and for Southern Water in the UK and on Eon’s approach for the company;
  • EMI on the auction sale conducted by Citi

Simon recently spent a couple of years as Managing Partner for our Asia business. Before taking up that role, Simon headed our global energy and natural resources sector group and, before that, the global telecoms, media and technology sector group. He has worked in London, New York and Hong Kong.

Contact details

simon.marchant
@freshfields.com

  • London office
  • 65 Fleet Street
    London EC4Y 1HS
    United Kingdom
  • Telephone
  • +44 20 7832 7552
  • Fax
  • +44 20 7108 7552