FUNDS TEAM OF THE YEAR 2018

Travers SmithWINNER

A Travers Smith team led by head of investment funds Sam Kay advised life sciences venture capital firm SV Health Managers on the fundraising of the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), which aims to support discovery and development of novel dementia treatment. The DDF is the first time that charity, government and the pharmaceutical industry have come together on this scale with a venture capital provider, with the ambition to tackle a major global health issue. Governmental involvement entailed specific state aid challenges around the process by which investors came in after first close. These included Woodford Patient Capital Trust plc, which required innovative and creative planning, and Gates Ventures LLC, the investment vehicle of Bill Gates.

Following the fundraising the fund has raised its hard cap from £130m to £245m. Because of the atypicality of the fund, which is not designed to focus predominantly on profit-generation, Travers Smith offered meaningful discounts to the client. The DDF aside, the firm won a slew of new clients in 2017 and 2018, confirming its standing in the City. The judges were impressed with the firm’s handing of ‘complex negotiations’, its ‘interesting collaboration with an important objective’ and is ‘demonstration of cross-practice area support’. A truly worthwhile project with impeccable execution.

Highly commended: Osborne Clarke

In 2015 the government mandated local government pension scheme (LGPS) funds pool their assets with the intention of reducing costs and reorganising resources so that the funds could become larger investors in infrastructure. An Osborne Clarke team consisting of partners Helen Parsonage, Mark Womersley, Mark Weser and Catherine Wolfenden carried out the project, noted by the judges for its ‘high degree of regulatory innovation and project management’ and for its impressive technical competency’

Commended: Herbert Smith Freehills

HSF, led by partner Nigel Farr, advised BioPhama Credit on its IPO, the second largest investment fund IPO of 2017. The judges singled out its ‘innovative and successful’ structure on a ‘detailed and complex’ deal.