Biography
Martin Weatherston-Wilson is a Corporate partner in London. He advises both private equity sponsors and corporates on a broad range of domestic and cross-border transactions, including buyouts, private M&A, takeovers, equity issues, management incentive programmes, reorganisations and general corporate advisory matters.
Representative experience includes:
Acquisitions
- Advent International and its portfolio company, Mangopay, on the acquisitions of Nethone and WhenThen
- Advent International on its investment in Planet
- Advent International and its portfolio company, Planet, on the acquisitions of Proximis and Avantio
- Advent International on its acquisition of Hoist Group, and the subsequent bolt-on of protel Hotelsoftware
- Bain Capital on its majority acquisition of Kantar from WPP
- Berkshire Partners on its acquisition of Teraco Data Environments
- Kantar on the acquisition of StepUp RGM by its joint venture with SilverTree Equity
- Sun European Partners on its acquisition of K3 Capital
- Sun European Partners on its acquisition of Sports & Leisure Group
- Wejo Limited on its $1.1 billion business combination with Virtuoso Acquisition Corp., a SPAC sponsored by Virtuoso Sponsor LLC
Disposals
- Berkshire Partners on its sale of Teraco Data Environments
- Kantar (a portfolio company of Bain Capital) on the $375m carve-out and sale of its Health division to Cerner Corporation
- Kantar on the establishment of a joint venture structure with SilverTree Equity and the contribution of its Xtel business division
- SEAF on its sale of ABCom to Vodafone Albania
- SEAF on its sale of American Hospital
- Westinghouse on its c. $4.6bn sale to Brookfield Business Partners and pre-completion restructuring
Takeovers / P2Ps
- Bain Capital on its £1.2bn takeover of esure Group
- Lone Star on its take-private of McCarthy & Stone
- Groupe Fnac on its £914m takeover of Darty*
- Highland Gold Mining on its £1bn recommend pre-conditional mandatory takeover offer by Fortiana Holdings
- TUI Travel on its £4.5bn takeover by TUI AG*
- Willis Towers Watson on its proposed $80bn combination with Aon
Fundraises
- Aston Martin in a £200m private placement of preference shares*
- Water Intelligence on several placings on London’s AIM market
- Wejo on a minority investment by General Motors, several advance subscription rounds, and a convertible loan funding round from the UK Business Bank’s Future Fund
Block Trades
- KKR on a $466m block trade of shares in Pets at Home Group plc*
- Blackstone and CVC on a series of block trades of shares in Merlin Entertainments, raising c. $2bn in aggregate*
* indicates a matter handled before joining Weil.