Norton Rose beats Richards Butler to Hemscott contracts
Norton Rose beats Richards Butler to Hemscott contracts" />Norton Rose has elbowed aside Richards Butler to scoop a trio of deals for new client business and financial information supplier Hemscott.
A team led by Norton Rose corporate partner Iain Wright pitched against Richards Butler, which has historically handled the bulk of Hemscott’s corporate work, and four other City firms to win the mandate.
Norton Rose is representing Hemscott on the acquisition of longstanding US data provider CoreData from CentrePoint Data and a partial offer by CentrePoint Data designed to give it a majority interest in Hemscott.
The firm is also handling the issue by Hemscott of a convertible note nominally valued at £20m to provide the company with better funding flexibility for possible future acquisitions.
Hemscott’s company secretary and general counsel Nick Sarker said that Norton Rose’s success in the beauty parade was down to a recommendation and because of the firm’s experience in handling deals in the US.
However, Sarker said that Hemscott continues to have a relationship with Richards Butler and no decision has yet been taken as to whether the firm will be replaced in favour of Norton Rose.
“I was very happy with the work Iain Wright did, but it’s too early to say if Norton Rose will be their [Richards Butler] replacement,” he said.
US firm Bingham McCutchen has also scooped its first ever instruction from Hemscott.
Boston-based corporate partner Joe Hicks was brought in to advise on US law matters following a personal recommendation to the company by Norton Rose corporate finance partner Andrew Mitchell, who worked alongside Wright on the deals.
Commenting on the deals, Wright said: “They threw up all sorts of interesting issues. The three deals had to work together, but had to be treated independently.”
The majority shareholder of CentrePoint Data is VS&A Communications, a $1bn (£561m) private equity house and an affiliate of Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS).
VSS is being advised by Macfarlanes in the UK and Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman in the US.
Richards Butler was unavailable for comment.
