Ashley Ballard concentrates on corporate and corporate finance transactions with a particular emphasis on cross-border mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, restructurings and buyouts. He has worked on transactions in the UK and across continental Europe and the CIS, involving a variety of industries, in particular, banking, real estate, electronics and automotive.

Ashley is Head of Corporate in London and has previously worked in the Milan and Prague offices of White & Case.

Ashley has acted for numerous well-known banks, multinational corporations and governmental entities in the recent past, most notably advising:

• Unimilk with respect to the $2.6 billion merger with Danone of their respective dairy businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus;
• US-based hedge fund and private equity firm Eton Park International LLP on the acquisition of Ruch S.A., a large chain of retail kiosks in Poland;
• on the €1.8 billion restructuring of Wind Hellas, the Greek telecommunications operator;
• KPMG as the joint administrators of Powerfuel PLC, in the hive down of its mining business to a newly incorporated subsidiary and the subsequent onsale to Entero B.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of ING Bank;
• Zolfo Cooper LLP, as joint administrators of Peverel Limited, the holding company of the group managing 200,000 residential units throughout the UK sold to a venture backed by private equity firms Chamonix and Electra;
• Brammer plc, a FTSE 350 services company, on its cash box placing in connection with the acquisition of Buck and Hickman from Travis Perkins;
• Residential Capital LLC (ResCap), the mortgage subsidiary of GMAC Financial Services, on the sale of its European mortgage assets and businesses to subsidiary funds managed by Fortress Investment Group LLC;
• the steering committee of lenders on the corporate aspects of the restructuring of the LINPAC Group undertaken by way of scheme of arrangement, CVA and a share acquisition;
• Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, leading the English law team on its proposed acquisition of a controlling stake in the European operations of General Motors Company with Magna International, the Canadian auto-parts manufacturer;
• Goldman Sachs (Whitehall Fund) on its acquisition of the Pokrovsky Hills real estate development in Moscow from Deutsche Bank and AIG;
• Celestica Inc., a Toronto and New York listed EMS multinational, in connection with unrelated transactions in the UK, Italy, France, Poland, Holland, Germany and the Czech Republic;
• Ali SpA, Europe's largest commercial catering equipment maker in its £260m acquisition of the global food services division from Aga Plc;
• Rolls Royce on various joint ventures and commercial arrangements;
• Umbro Plc on its acquisition of a Hong Kong sportswear manufacturing and sourcing operation and separate acquisition of its French licences;
• UniCredito Italiano S.p.A. as lead partner on the integration of its Central and Eastern European banking group with that of the Hypo Vereinsbank and Bank Austria group. The work involves overseeing the merger and restructuring of the individual banks of both groups in numerous countries including, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Croatia, Turkey, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria and Bosnia Herzogovna;
• UniCredito Italiano S.p.A. as bidder in various bank privatisations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia and on its acquisition in Turkey of a 50% stake in Koçbank, and associated joint venture; and
• Doughty Hanson real estate fund in relation to its US$217m joint venture with Liberty Property Limited Partnership structured through a Jersey Property Unit Trust.

Bars and Courts
Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, 1995

Education
Law Society Finals, London Guildhall University, Honours, 1993
BA, Economics and Politics, University of Durham, Joint Honours, 1991

Languages
English

Citizenship
British