Key clients: Cinven, 3i Group, Permira, General Atlantic
Partner since 2015
A key deal for me was the IPO of Spire Healthcare: I’d done the original buyout for Cinven in 2007 as a mid-level associate and then stayed with that deal until the IPO in 2014. That type of deal gets you under the skin of a business. It creates deep relationships with clients.
Pearson on the merger with Penguin and Random House was a highlight. Everyone’s got a Penguin or a Random House book. I’ve done more complicated deals, but having one that everybody was interested in is something you take a lot from.
The law for me was never about a desire to be a lawyer. It was discovering what my skillsets were. I was looking for something that used my arts background and way of thinking in a challenging way. I’m a German speaker and one of the things that attracted me to the City, especially to Freshfields, was the international nature of the firm.
My influences? David Higgins and Adrian Maguire are pre-eminent private equity lawyers in Europe and have hugely shaped my current practice. Jennifer Bethlehem is an incredible lawyer and has taught me a huge amount about client service as well as how we motivate our talent.
‘We hunt in packs.’
Victoria Sigeti, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
I value fairness very highly and that drives a lot of my behaviour, whether that’s how I behave on a deal with clients and counterparties or how I manage myself at the firm. My weakness is thinking I can do it all.
Freshfields’ PE team works as a team. We say we hunt in packs; we have multiple partners on client relationships, which is better for clients and enables us all to have a broader practice.
The big focus for us is working with the US. You would have seen from recent deals that it’s going very well.
For further reading, please click to return to The M&A Report