George Knighton

Mr. Knighton is ranked as a leading lawyer in Chambers Global for Corporate/M&A and Chambers UK for M&A: High-End Capability.

Since joining Skadden, Mr. Knighton’s experience includes advising:

• Sampo plc in the debt financing and shareholder arrangements with joint offeror Rand Merchant Investment Holdings Limited to support their £1.66 billion takeover bid for Hastings Group Holdings plc;
• Iceland Foods in the acquisition by founder and executive chair, Sir Malcolm Walker CBE, and chief executive officer, Tarsem Dhaliwal, of a 63% stake in Iceland Foods from Brait, a South African private equity fund; and
• Phoenix Group Holdings plc in its US$4.1 billion acquisition of ReAssure Group plc from Swiss Re.

Mr. Knighton’s M&A experience prior to joining Skadden includes representing:

• HBOS in its merger with Lloyds;
• Misys in its acquisition of a majority holding in Allscripts (a Nasdaq-listed company), including advising on the company’s new board arrangements. Mr. Knighton also advised on the subsequent disposal of the holding and return of the profit via a tender offer and B share scheme;
• the independent directors of DTZ in their response to a takeover approach from its majority shareholder and in managing the first formal sales process under the Takeover Code that led to a delisting and sale of the business by prepacked administration;
• the board of Misys in a potential merger with Temenos, and its response to a takeover approach made jointly by its largest shareholder and its takeover by Vista;
• the founders of B&M Stores in the sale of a majority stake to Clayton Dubilier & Rice and the subsequent IPO;
• Blackstone in the takeover of Max Property Group plc;
• Virgin Money in its acquisition of Northern Rock plc and its IPO;
• Iceland Foods in its £1.5 billion management buyout and subsequent high-yield bond issues;
• Virgin Money in its takeover by CYBG;
• ICAMAP, the largest shareholder of easyHotel, in its takeover offer to acquire a majority stake in the business and its negotiations with founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou;
• EuroGarages in its merger with EFR; acquisitions in Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and the U.S.; and sale of its Fuel Card business to Wex Inc.;
• the administrators of Phones 4u in the sale of its retail network to EE and Vodafone;
• Cerberus Capital Management in its acquisition of HSH Nordbank together with consortium partners; and
• Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in its acquisition of the aerospace insurance division of Jardine Lloyd Thomson (JLT) from JLT and Marsh & McLennan Companies.