Market Leading Expertise
Our market leading Corporate M&A Group is consistently mandated on the most high-profile, complex and high value transactions in both the domestic and cross border markets. We work with our specialist lawyers and business professionals across the firm to provide the full range of corporate transactional and advisory services to our clients, including:
- private company M&A;
- public company M&A;
- private equity;
- venture capital and growth equity transactions;
- joint ventures;
- public company advisory and corporate governance;
- restructurings, migrations and spin-outs;
- corporate advisory and company law; and
- company secretarial services.
We have a strong sector focus that allows us to work with clients with the benefit of a deep regulatory and market understanding of their businesses.
Our Team
Our Corporate M&A team comprises 16 partners, supported by one of the largest teams of M&A lawyers in Ireland as well as technical, in-house digital services and legal technology experts. With a number of M&A partners and other lawyers permanently based in our London and New York offices, the team is ideally placed to manage cross border transactions both on-the-ground and from different time-zones.
- Corporate
- Corporate Reorganisations
- Corporate Governance and Compliance
- Corporate Redomiciliation and Migration
- Employee Equity Incentives
- Energy and Infrastructure M&A
- Equity Capital Markets
- Financial Institutions M&A
- Food, Agribusiness and Beverage
- Life Sciences
- PLC Advisory and Corporate Governance
- Private Equity
- Private Capital
Smurfit Westrock Rings Bell at NYSE Listing
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A Matheson team, led by Dublin-based partners David Fitzgibbon (Co-head of Corporate and head of Corporate M&A) and Susanne McMenamin, and New York-based partner David Jones; together with a Corporate M&A team comprising senior associates, Thomas Burke and Anna O’Carroll, associates, Darren Quinn, Leo Collins and Joanna Malek, solicitors, Megan Gantly, Kevin Lavin, Niamh L. Gallagher, Rachel Hodgins, David Dempsey, Zainab Masood, Evelyn Soye, William Annab, and Kevin Burns, and trainees, Ellie Glynn and Maura Sullivan, is pleased to have advised Smurfit Kappa Group, the FTSE 100 paper-based packaging company on its successful combination with WestRock Company, to create Smurfit Westrock plc, a global leader in sustainable packaging.
Having a market capitalisation of $25.5bn, Smurfit Westrock will be an S&P 500 company with its primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange and a standard listing on the London Stock Exchange. The combination is one of the largest outbound mergers ever executed by an Irish company. It was announced in September 2023 and implemented via an Irish law scheme of arrangement and a Delaware merger with a subsequent listing on the NYSE and the LSE.
Speaking today, David Fitzgibbon, Co-head of Corporate and head of Corporate M&A. said “Matheson is proud to have led the legal team supporting Smurfit Kappa on its combination with WestRock to form Smurfit Westrock. We extend our sincere congratulations to Tony Smurfit, Ken Bowles, Gillian Carson-Callan and the rest of the Smurfit Kappa team on bringing this combination to a successful close, and we extend our best wishes to the newly combined Smurfit Westrock team. This is one of the biggest and most complex transactions of its type on the market, and its successful completion is a testament once again to the skills and experience of Matheson’s market-leading Corporate M&A practice, and its proven ability to work with multinational clients on complex and strategic cross-border transactions."
The Corporate M&A team worked alongside a wider Matheson team including Anti-trust partners Niall Collins, Kate McKenna and Calum Warren, and senior associate Simon Shinkwin; Tax partners Tomás Bailey and Philip Tully, supported by associate Rachel O'Sullivan and solicitor Cliodhna MacCabe; Litigation partner Brendan Colgan with senior associate Kathryn Rice and trainee Peter Holland; and Employment partner Russell Rochford, supported by associates Conor Woods and Shane Gallen and solicitor Shauna Moran.
The Matheson team worked alongside US counsel, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and UK counsel, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.
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