Corporate Finance Associate

The Team

The London Corporate Finance team provides a comprehensive range of services across its practice, including public M&A, private M&A, ECM, DCM, High Yield, as well as public company corporate governance and other advisory work. The team works with a wide range of clients, acting for UK PLCs and multinationals in their capacity as issuer, bidder or target, as well as financial institutions on both capital markets and M&A transactions.

The team has acted on some of the most high profile transactions in the market and grown significantly in recent years. The team is still growing and looking for an associate to join during this exciting period and to be part of the team's long-term future.

The London Corporate Finance team forms part of Baker McKenzie's London Corporate department which is the largest within the office and at the heart of the Firm's business. The London Corporate team has over 150 fee earners and business professionals and we work across 6 key industry groups: (i) Consumer Goods & Retail, (ii) Energy Mining & Infrastructure, (iii) Financial Institutions, (iv) Healthcare, (v) Industrials, Manufacturing & Transportation, and (vi) Technology, Media and Telecoms.

Our key differentiator is that we are lawyers who collaborate across borders, markets and industries around the globe. Our lawyers embrace new ideas and emerging technologies to give businesses confidence in these uncertain times. Baker McKenzie's clients include nearly all of the world's 100 largest public companies and more than three-quarters of the Fortune 500. 

The Role

The Corporate Finance team is looking for Corporate associates that have had good transactional experience in the public company space and the role will include, but is not limited to, the following: 

• Front-line management of deals, including drafting and negotiating the key transactional documents, control of due diligence and disclosure exercises and closings, managing projects to a budget, and taking responsibility for client satisfaction
• Invariably cross-border, the nature of the work will fall into three broad categories:
• advising on transactions, including public M&A but also private M&A, joint ventures and investments;
• fund raisings and equity capital markets transactions, including initial public offers and secondaries (such as placings, rights issues etc..), as well as buy-backs, acting for issuers and banks/underwriters; and
• advisory work, involving Takeover Code, Listing Rules and AIM Rules, Prospectus Rules and MAR, as well as corporate governance advice
• Associates will work in a highly collegiate environment, for a range of partners, and can expect a good variety of work
• Developing relationships with clients including gaining a good knowledge of the client's businesses, economic drivers, market and sector requirements in order to ensure advice is relevant, pragmatic and commercial
• Engaging in business development activities and being active in the promotion of the firm and seeking opportunities for new work
• Working as part of a team, including assisting with the supervision of junior lawyers' work, and taking an active part in sharing knowledge and experience with the team

Associates are given regular and direct contact with clients, with a culture based on associates being given the level of responsibility they are ready for, rather than a PQE based method of work allocation. There are regular opportunities for secondments with clients. Posting to other offices under the firm's associate transfer programme is also a possibility.

Skills and experience:

• A qualified lawyer with excellent academics credentials as a mid-level associate years of post-qualification experience)
• First rate technical skills needed to support the client work of the team and department
• Commerciality and demonstrable business development experience
• Excellent written communication and drafting skills
• Initiative and proactivity
• Maturity and gravitas
• Strong service orientation - a "client first" culture
• Ability to develop strong relationships with clients and to take responsibility for this relationship
• High work standards
• Flexible work practices
• Outstanding communication skills and the ability to adapt style as required
• Ability to work well in both a team and individually
• A keenness to learn
• Respects and enjoys the diversity of cultural, social and academic backgrounds found in the Firm