Biography
Oliver Walker is a Tax partner in the London office.
Oliver advises clients on tax issues principally relating to corporate transactions, with particular focus on:
- providing tax and structuring advice in relation to private equity and general corporate M&A transactions and reorganisations;
- designing and advising on complex equity incentive arrangements;
- advising on tax provisions of acquisition finance agreements; and
- providing VAT advice.
Oliver is also regularly involved in tax cases before the English and European Courts, and led the tax aspects of various landmark cases, including Littlewoods v HMRC, one of the largest money judgements in English history. Oliver is recommended for Corporate Tax and Tax Litigation by Legal 500 UK, where he is described as being “thoughtful and responsive”.
Representative experience includes advising:
- Montagu Private Equity on the acquisition of OASIS Group, a leading records and information management company in Europe
- OMERS on the sale of Civica group to Partners Group
- Busy Bees Nursery Group in its acquisition of Treetops Nurseries Limited from Electra Private Equity, having advised Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board in its acquisition of Busy Bees Childcare from Knowledge Universe Education
- OMERS Private Equity in its sale of V.Group to an affiliate of Advent International
- Advent International Corporation in its acquisition of Brammer plc
- Oaktree Capital Management in the sale of the UK operations of Fitness First Limited to Dave Whelan Sports, and in the merger of Fitness First Asia with Celebrity Fitness
- Technology Crossover Ventures in its acquisition of Retail Merchant Services (RMS) from RMS’ founder and management who remain shareholders
- HgCapital in its acquisition of Citation from ECI Partners
- GHO Capital Partners in its acquisition of Visufarma and the European commercial operations of Nicox
- Public Sector Pension Investment Board, along with BC Partners, in the acquisition of Keter Plastic
- Securitas Direct and its core management team in connection with the restructuring of management’s equity following the acquisition of Bain’s interest in the group by Hellman & Friedman
- Shop Direct with respect to the design and implementation of bespoke compensation packages for key personnel
- Blackstone with respect to designing complex incentive arrangements for certain key managers