Biography
Lewis Blakey is a Private Equity partner in London, specialising in advising private equity and other financial investors on buyouts (including complex carve-out and public-to-private transactions), growth equity/minority investments, and exits (including sales and IPOs).
Lewis is ranked for his private equity practice in the most recent UK editions of each of Chambers, Legal 500 and IFLR1000, and has consistently been recognised as a rising star of the private equity market. Lewis was also a key member of the Weil team awarded 2020 Private Equity Team of the Year at the Legal Business Awards for its work advising Bain Capital on the $4bn acquisition of 60% of Kantar from WPP Group. In the directories, Lewis has recently been described as “an excellent private equity/M&A lawyer”, “very bright, extremely tenacious and hard-working”, “a valued member of our deal team”, and “a rising star, who will quickly become a leader in his field” who has an “extremely commercial perspective, with a mind that can consider the question from all angles.”
Lewis’ experience includes leading teams advising:
- Advent on the acquisition of SYSPRO and the add-on acquisition of NexSys
- Advent on the sale of Williams Lea to RR Donnelly
- Advent on the $550m sale of Ultra Maritime’s Signature Management & Power business to ESCO Technologies
- Advent on the €3.9bn sale of Aareon to TPG and CDPQ and Advent’s reinvestment into Aareon alongside them
- PSG on the sale of Nalanda to Once For All (a portfolio company of GTCR) and PSG’s reinvestment into the combined business
- PSG on the sale of OpusCapita to GEP
- Apse Capital on a €350m multi-asset continuation fund transaction
- SilverTree Equity on the sale of a co-controlling interest in Orbus Software to FTV Capital
- Bain Capital on the fully consensual and comprehensive recapitalisation of Consolis
- Vialto Partners, a portfolio company of CD&R, on the recapitalisation of Vialto Partners
- Morrow Sodali, a portfolio company of TPG Growth, on the acquisition of Powerscourt
- Px3 Partners on the carve-out acquisition of the filtration division of Celeros Flow Technology, a portfolio company of Apollo Global Management
- Advent on the carve-out sale of Tag (part of the Williams Lea Tag group) to Dentsu
- PSG on the sale of Nomentia to Inflexion
- M&G Catalyst on its GP-stake investment and stapled cornerstone fund commitment in Regenerate Asset Management, a sustainable agriculture investment platform
- Bain Capital on the acquisition, together with Nextalia, of Deltatre
- Cobham (a portfolio company of Advent) on the carve-out and sale of its: (a) Mission Systems division to Eaton for $2.83bn; (b) Aerospace Connectivity division to TransDigm for $965m; (c) Aviation Services UK division to Draken International (a portfolio company of Blackstone); (d) Slip Rings division to Naxicap; (e) Microwave division to FCDE; (f) Special Mission division to Leidos; (g) Regional Services division to Rex; (h) CAES Space division to Veritas Capital; and (i) Aerospace Communications business to Thales
- Shieldco (a portfolio company of PSG) on the acquisition of 10to8
- Kantar (a portfolio company of Bain Capital) on the merger, in partnership with SilverTree Equity, of Kantar Xtel with StepUp
- M&G Catalyst on the investment in Northern Gritstone, a company founded by the Universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield to focus on university spin-outs in the north of England
- Advent on the investment in Medius
- Bain Capital on the co-investment arrangements with NB Renaissance relating to the acquisition of Inetum SA
- Sumeru Equity Partners on the investment in iProov Limited
- Advent on the acquisition, together with Viking Global, of Global Processing Services
- The consortium led by Advent on the $8bn offer for Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (SOBI)
- PSG on the acquisition of Sign In App to form Shieldco
- Aleph Capital on the entry into a strategic partnership with the J. Safra Group to create a leading pan-European non-performing loan platform and debt collection agency
- Kantar (a portfolio company of Bain Capital) on the: (a) acquisition of Numerator from Vista Equity Partners; and (b) carve-out and sale of its Health division to Cerner Corporation
- Transaction Services Group (a portfolio company of Advent) on the merger with Clearent (also a portfolio company of Advent) to form Xplor Technologies