Simon Holden

Partner

Corporate Finance, Financial Services, M&A, Private Equity, Securities advice and Corporate Counselling

sholden@thekhanpartnership.com

Simon is a very experienced Corporate lawyer, who acts for a diverse range of corporate and individual clients.  His practice focuses mainly on corporate finance, securities law, private equity, M&A and commercial transactions, with a particular emphasis on assisting early stage companies raise capital.

Simon has advised on a number of capital markets transactions, specifically on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, where he has represented issuers and Nominated Advisers.  He has worked on a broad array of market-related transactions, including restructurings, share capital reductions, reverse takeovers, Rule 144A offerings, IPOs and secondary placings.  He has also acted for issuers seeking admission to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange and the PLUS-quoted Market.  He has an excellent understanding of the capital market regimes in Australia, Canada and the United States, having acted for a number of clients based in these jurisdictions during his career, some of which have been dual-quoted in London.

Additionally, he has advised clients in connection with sale and purchase agreements, terms and conditions of business, joint venture and shareholders’ agreements, confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, consultancy and service agreements, and a wide array of other general commercial agreements.

Simon has written extensively on the legal issues affecting companies, specifically with regard to the capital markets in the UK, corporate governance, the clean technology sector and the Companies Act 2006.  He is a regular contributor to Tolley’s Company Secretary’s Review.

Prior to joining the firm, Simon was a senior Associate in the Corporate Group of the London office of U.S. law firm Faegre & Benson, where he was responsible for heading that office’s NECTC (New Energy, Clean Technology & Climate) practice.


Representative transactions:

  • Advised a broker-dealer with U.S. and U.K. operations in connection with its change in legal status with the Financial Services Authority.
  • Prepared terms and conditions of business, together with ancillary trading agreements and compliance manuals, for U.K. brokerage firm.
  • Advised a US-based precious metals commodities trader in connection with its establishing operations in the U.K.
  • Acted for a private company in connection with a large cross-border transaction involving a private equity funder and multiple acquisitions. Advice included all M&A aspects of the transaction, together with a significant equity investment and the negotiation of a £25M secured loan facility.
  • Advised a large hydropower company based in China in connection with an Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreement, enabling it to sell carbon credits generated by its hydro project.
  • Completed a number of secondary capital raisings in excess of £10M on behalf of AIM-quoted Solomon Gold plc, having previously led the IPO legal team for the same company in 2006.
  • Advised Europe’s largest provider of fuelcards in connection with a broad array of commercial agreements with blue chip partners; which included reseller, dealer and services agreements, terms and conditions of business, and confidentiality agreements.
  • Advised an English company on its consolidation strategy in the electronics waste and reverse logistics sectors, which included working simultaneously on a number of domestic and international acquisitions and joint ventures.
  • Advised one of Europe’s largest pharma companies in connection with a purchase of assets out of administration.
  • Acted for the U.S. based selling shareholders of Snorkel Holdings llc in connection with the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of that company by AIM-quoted The Tanfield Group plc for US$100M.
  • Advised a start-up tyre recycling company based in the U.K. in connection with its obtaining private equity funding, by way of a convertible debt instrument, from the special situations fund of a large well-known publicly quoted asset management group.
  • Advised AIM-quoted company Sierra Rutile ltd, a rutile and bauxite mining production company with operations in Sierra Leone, in connection with its Rule 144A compliant private placement with institutional investors of US$35M.
  • Advised ASX-quoted exploration company Union Resources ltd in connection with its fast track admission to trading on the AIM market.
  • Acted for a privately held property company in relation to a £20M hotel development in a joint venture with a well known Championship (now Premiership) football club.
  • Advised AIM-quoted Eurovestech plc, a pan-European  development capital fund focused on high technology enterprises, in connection with a secondary placing of £5M.