James leads Shoosmiths’ Corporate North teams (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester and Leeds) and heads our Northern Private Equity practice and is nationally recognised for his private equity expertise. James specialises in corporate finance, with particular emphasis on M&A and private equity transactions, including acquisitions and divestments, venture capital, growth equity, private equity investments and joint ventures. He is recognised by clients for his hands-on and responsive approach, technical skills and commercial pragmatism.

James’ client base includes acquisitive international corporates, US and European sponsors, private equity backed investee companies and UK private equity and venture capital investors.

Recent experience includes advising:

• LDC on its sale and subsequent co-investment with Francisco Partners in ByBox;
• WM Morrison Supermarkets plc on the acquisition of three superstores from the Co-operative Group;
• Capiton AG (via its investee company the Dec Group) on the acquisition of Extract Technology from Wabash National Corporation;
• August Equity on its divestment of the Aspirations Group to Elysian Capital, by way of secondary buy-out;
• shareholders of Coppergreen Leisure Resorts on their exit to Away Resorts (backed by CVC Capital Partners Fund VII);
• shareholders of NSS Group on their exit to PTSG Group (backed by both Warburg Pincus and Macquirie Capital);
• Ellis Recruitment Group on its investment from Mobeus Equity Partners;
• Capfun on the acquisition of Lakeshore Leisure Group from Kings Park Capital and Management;
• Azets (backed by PAI Partners and Hg Capital) on numerous bolt on acquisitions in England and Ireland;
• Latus Health on its acquisition of ELAS Occupational Health and Industrial Diagnostics Group from Citation;
• Management of Building Costs Information Service Limited, a carve out from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, on its investment by LDC;
• shareholders of Taskmaster Resources on their sale to IPE Ventures;
• shareholders of BYM-Digival to Nurtur Group (backed by Tosca Fund);
• YFM Equity Partners in respect of their investment alongside Comhar Capital in Panintelligence; investment into Force 24; their co-investment alongside Maven Capital Partners into Summize Group; and
• Yorkshire Wildlife Group on its debt and equity raise from Lloyds Bank plc and BGF.

Education
BSC (hons) International Business Economics - Lancaster University