Squire Patton Boggs announces the appointment of Chris Hastings as a partner in its Financial Services Practice Group in London.
Mr. Hastings, who joins from Eversheds Sutherland, is a finance lawyer focused on leveraged and acquisition financing. He acts for private equity firms and their portfolio companies, corporate borrowers, and for private credit funds in relation to transactions at all levels of capital structures. His experience covers complex domestic and international transactions in support of M&A activity, leveraged buyouts, refinancing and distressed or opportunistic investments.
European managing partner Jonathan Jones said, “We welcome Chris to the firm. His appointment is a significant boost in the continued expansion of our global private equity and financial services practices across the UK and Europe. He is an outstanding finance lawyer with a strong track-record of working on strategic investments for a wide range of mid-market private credit and private equity clients and supporting their portfolio companies throughout their investment life cycles. He will be a considerable asset to the team and above all for clients.”
“It’s an exciting prospect having Chris join us,” added Paul Mann, head of the Private Equity Practice in Europe. “The opportunities nationally and internationally are considerable, with private equity sponsors continually seeking financing for acquisitions. Chris’ technical skills, commercial outlook and international connections, perfectly complement our well-established private equity group. And he shares our ethos of working in a collaborative manner to deliver the very highest quality service.”
“I am very excited to join Squire Patton Boggs,” commented Mr. Hastings. “It has such a strong international platform and an impressive record in the private equity and private capital markets. It is rare, even among the best international firms, to see a team so closely integrated, working so dynamically with an entrepreneurial ambition for their clients.”
Among his recent work, he has acted for Inflexion on its acquisition of a minority stake in the Goat agency (and subsequent sale to WPP), a leading influencer and social media marketing agency; acted for Aurelius on its carve-out of UK property services provider TM Group from Dye & Durham; and for Pollen Street Capital on the acquisition of Assessio, a leading talent assessment software platform in the Nordics. Recent private credit mandates have included advising the London-based teams of Tresmares Capital and Eurazeo on mid-market direct lending mandates to support domestic and international PE-backed businesses.
Mr. Hastings’ hire is part of Squire Patton Boggs’ continued commitment to growing its private equity and financial services practices. The firm’s global Financial Services Practice works closely with the full spectrum of lenders providing debt capital, including alternative capital providers. The team represents both private capital sources and sponsors/borrowers accessing their funding. The firm’s private equity group has trebled in size over the past two years, with appointments of new partners and associates in London, Birmingham, Paris, Milan, Madrid and Frankfurt. The firm also announced the launch of two new, PE-focused offices in Dublin and Amsterdam.