Ian Piggin

Ian Piggin makes successful transactions happen for mid-market private equity and venture investors and their portfolio companies.

As head of the firm's private equity team, Ian works with private equity and venture capital funds on acquisitions, exits, portfolio matters, divestments and everything in between.

Although the majority of Ian's mid-market transactions are almost exclusively UK based, a lot of his venture and life sciences work is international. This provides him with a thorough working knowledge of both UK and international markets and adds to the diversity of his work and clients. For example, in a recent life science investment matter, Ian and his team acted for a syndicate of eight investors, with members across Australia, Japan, Denmark and the US.

Ian regularly presents and writes about matters of interest to private equity and venture investors. He is also a member of our life science and technology sector groups, acting for significant pharmaceutical and technology clients.

He's pleased to be regarded as a very hands-on, trusted, commercial and technical legal adviser by his private equity and corporate clients.

Highlights

It's hard for Ian to pick out deal highlights as there have been so many, and being head of the private equity team and in the life science team he finds incredibly rewarding in itself.

He really enjoys the diversity of his role, whether it's acting for early stage biotechs getting funding for novel therapies for oncology treatment, or acting for our long term private equity clients on their whole investment and divestment cycles. Each successful project is, for Ian, immensely satisfying.

One that sticks out as being one of the most challenging deals he's worked on was for 3i, acting on the £160 million secondary buy-out of Hayley Conference Centres Limited. It was a unique project in many ways. Even though the commercial negotiation of the transaction took place over several months, the legal process was compressed into a very short period indeed.

This demanding set of circumstances required us to pull out all the stops to overcome significant legal, tax and practical obstacles and ensure the transaction completed on time. It was a great deal to be a part of, and the eventual result was hugely gratifying.

Clients

Abingworth, Business Growth Fund, Cairngorm Capital, Core Capital, Frog Capital, H2 Equity Partners, H.I.G. European Capital Partners, MaxCap Partners LLP, MML Capital Partners, Mountain Warehouse Group, NVM Private Equity Limited, Octopus Investments, SR One and SV Life Sciences.

Outside work

Outside the office, Ian's been involved in several sporting endeavours. These include running the London Marathon and cycling to Barcelona. Quite apart from the cramp and blisters, this has raised over £10,000 for various charities, which is something Ian is immensely proud of. He is also a keen squash player.