Job Title
Senior Partner
Email Address
Fax
01903 229176
Department/s
Management Team
Anthony Edwards
Overview
I am an experienced businessman with a wealth of experience as a Mergers & Acquisitions lawyer, Managing Partner and Non-Executive Chairman.
I was chair of The Ince Group PLC, a legal services business, from its admission to AIM through to its acquisition of multiple law firm offices in the UK and across Europe, the UAE and Asia. During my time as chair, the business increased turnover from £34m to £97m with a growth of employees from 250 to 950.
Between 2003 & 2017 I also chaired Thesis Asset Management plc, a fast growing investment management service provider for private clients, charities, pension funds, and trusts with funds under management growing from £600m to £12 billion during my chairmanship, which ended with the successful sale of the company to Regit Bidco Limited for £47m in 2017.
From 2003 to 2012 I was managing partner of Thomas Eggar LLP, leading the firm through a period of rapid expansion to become the leading firm in the South East. Under my tenure, revenues increased from £20m to £37m.
I am a qualified solicitor with a demonstrated history of working in the law practice industry. I am skilled in Negotiation, Venture Capital, Management, Crisis Counselling, and Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A).
As a practitioner I acted on a range of M&A transactions as lead lawyer or as adviser to the management team to deliver shareholder value, ranging up to nine figure returns.
Areas of Expertise
- I qualified in 1982 and worked in property and general business advice as well as insolvency and corporate restructuring.
- In 1996 I moved from a mixed business legal role to acting on corporate deals
- In the six years that followed I was lead lawyer on around 20 deals ranging between £5m and £120m. The type of deals ranged from acting for a main market listed PLC on its acquisitions through to a NASDAQ merger and a range of interesting deals for very effective and demanding businessmen and entrepreneurs.
- Between 1999 and 2012 I lead the relationship with a US law network which led to several key high profile engagements, including working on the financing of the Austin Texas FI race track.
- Even after moving into management I was called back into action on several occasions to ride shotgun on some larger deals, which included a £100m public to private and a range of other deals from £80m to £350m. A very different perspective when in an oversight role.
- Finally in the past four years as a client I have directly spent over £1m on M&A professional fees .
- For the Thesis sale, Irwin Mitchell were conflicted so we went through a process to select a firm from three chosen following extensive recommendation and research. Again, an interesting insight and it could have so easily cost us a huge sum had we not made the right choice. As it was the fees overran by £125k.
- I sat on the judging panels for the Corporate Deal Maker in the South East in 2018 and 2019.