We are pleased to announce the appointment on 1 December 2020 of cross-sector M&A specialist, Joanna Jowitt, from Deloitte. With significant mid-market transactional experience, including five years with City stalwart Slaughter and May and more recently with Pinsent Masons and Deloitte Legal, Joanna has been leading domestic and international sellers and buyers on both local and cross-border transactions for more than 15 years.
Joanna will be based predominantly in our Leeds office where her vast experience and sector-focussed expertise will boost further our corporate offering and national profile. According to leading legal directory The Legal 500, Joanna is described as “passionate about her work and a pleasure to work with."
Paul Johnson, partner and head of the Leeds corporate team, said: “This is an exciting time for the team, which has enjoyed rapid expansion in the last 12 months with principal associates Alex Kenworthy and Vanessa Walton re-locating to Leeds from East Anglia.”
“The Leeds office now has four corporate and commercial partners with strength in depth to support them. This, allied with Mills & Reeve’s national approach of working across teams and with a sector focus, gives us the resource to continue to build on the strong client and intermediary relationships we have established in the Yorkshire region.”
Joanna acts for a variety of businesses, including SMEs, private equity backed businesses, small local businesses and large PLCs. She has an impressive roster of transactions behind her, including acting as international legal counsel on the $1.4 billion acquisition of Lafarge India by Indian conglomerate Nirma, the acquisition of Hammer Consolidated Holdings for Exertis (UK) and advising on the simultaneous acquisition of four open cycle gas turbine peaker plants by Drax. Her portfolio at Deloitte has included leading on a number of significant M&A transactions across the value spectrum, concluding multi-jurisdictional debt reorganisations, and securing Deloitte Legal’s first panel appointment with a leading insurance sector consolidator.
Joanna added: “I’ve had an unbelievable ride at Deloitte Legal, but it is definitely a challenge to build an M&A practice in the shadow of audit independence. The sheer scope of my practice needs the strength offered by Mills and Reeve’s firm-wide excellence. I’ve been on the other side a number of times in my career and it would be impossible to overstate the firm’s practical and personable approach; something we all benefit from as lawyers and on which our clients rely. I am delighted to join a firm with such an excellent reputation and outstanding talent.”
Our content explained
Every piece of content we create is correct on the date it’s published but please don’t rely on it as legal advice. If you’d like to speak to us about your own legal requirements, please contact one of our expert lawyers.