Colin Raftery is the Senior Director of Mergers at the Competition and Markets Authority, where he leads the work of the CMA’s mergers group. Prior to joining the CMA, Colin advised on all aspects of EU and UK competition law at law firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Brussels and Washington DC. Colin holds an undergraduate degree in law from the University of Edinburgh and postgraduate degrees in law from the College of Europe, Bruges, and the University of Chicago.

Simon Lindsay was appointed Director General of the Takeover Panel on 2nd July, 2018.  Simon is on secondment from Citigroup where he was a managing director within UK Investment Banking and the head of UK M&A.  Simon has been an M&A-focused investment banker for almost 30  years and has focused principally on the UK since joining Schroders (subsequently forming part of Citigroup) in 1997.  During that time, he has worked on a wide range of transactions involving UK and Irish counterparties, including public takeovers, private acquisitions and disposals, IPOs and restructurings.

Tom Scott started his first term as a member of the International Accounting Standards Board in April 2017.
Prior to his appointment, he served as director and professor of accounting at the School of Accounting and Finance at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and held the positions of vice dean and professor of accounting at the University of Alberta’s School of Business. His teaching and research focused on financial reporting, and in particular, on the usefulness of financial reporting for understanding security prices.
Mr Scott has taught at all university levels, published numerous research papers and received several awards, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for Contributions to Canada (2012) and the Distinguished Service Award of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta (2009).
He was a member of the Canadian Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) from 2003 to 2011 and of the Conceptual Framework Advisory Council to the AcSB from 2005 to 2015.
Mr Scott holds an MBA from McGill University and a PhD from Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada.

Mr. Benham is a partner in Davis Polk's Corporate Department, practising in the Finance Group in the London office. He regularly advises on a wide range of corporate finance transactions with a particular focus on leveraged and investment-grade acquisition financings acting for borrowers and for debt providers at all levels of the capital structure. Mr. Benham has extensive experience advising on the financing of public company takeovers. He also acts in connection with financial restructurings for strategic debt investors.

Richard Butterwick is a London-based M&A partner at global law firm Latham & Watkins. Richard has over 15 years counselling clients on a wide variety of domestic and cross-border corporate finance and M&A work, including public takeovers, private M&A, joint ventures, activism defence, and capital markets transactions. Richard is a former chair of Latham & Watkins' global Public Company Representation practice and a former seconded member of the UK Takeover Panel’s executive.

Gavin is a corporate partner with 28 years' experience at Herbert Smith Freehills. He heads our global M&A practice, and is a member of the board of the Firm.
He advises UK listed companies, multi-national corporate clients and international financial investors on cross-border M&A and investments, across the UK, Continental Europe and Africa. Gavin regularly advises on matters involving complex or novel structures, and contentious or distressed situations. He has twice led teams winning Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards. He also advises the Government of Sierra Leone on a pro bono basis.
Gavin has strong sector experience in technology, media & telecoms, real estate and industrials. He has particular expertise in UK public takeovers, and shareholder activism situations.

Ursula Newton is the senior Partner in the PwC Capital Markets Group, where she leads our M&A team. She has specialised in capital markets for over 20 years. In addition to executing transactions, Ursula advises companies on the applications of the rules applicable for listing on London’s main market and on AIM, the Standards for Investment Reporting (“SIRs”) and the Takeover Code. She has an active interest in the development of regulation in the market, having been a member of the APB SIRs sub-committee and Chairman of the working party which produced SIR 1000. Ursula leads the firm’s response to the Takeover Panel on changes to the City Code and is a member of the FCA Listing Authority Advisory Panel and of the Primary Markets Group of the London Stock Exchange.

Ursula has extensive experience of working with companies operating in the London capital markets having worked on a significant number of major listings and transactions including the proposed takeover of the London Stock Exchange by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; the takeover of RPC by Berry Global; the takeover of Redde by Northgate; the takeover of Hogg Robinson by American Express; the proposed takeover of Intu by the Peel Group; the Hammerson Plc offer to acquire Intu Properties Plc; the possible offer by Redrow Plc for Bovis Homes Group Plc; the BT acquisition of EE; the TUI AG/TUI Travel Plc merger; the demerger and IPO of the Pharmaceuticals business of Reckitt Benckiser; the Barclays rights issue and the main market IPOs of Funding Circle and Autotrader

Michael Nicholson is Head of M&A at Peel Hunt. He focuses primarily on transactions involving UK public companies, having spent his career advising UK plcs ranging from the FTSE 100 to small-cap companies.

He started his career at the boutique advisory firm, Makinson Cowell, which was acquired by KPMG in 2013. He spent two years on secondment to the Takeover Panel from 2015-2017 regulating, amongst others, the takeovers of SABMiller and ARM Holdings. Michael joined Peel Hunt in 2017.

Mr. Pearce is a partner in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department, practicing in the London office. He advises corporate, private equity and investment banking clients on public and private mergers and acquisitions, takeovers and securities offerings and listings.

He also advises on corporate governance, shareholder activism and restructuring matters and corporate and securities law and regulation.

With over 20 years' experience of advising on the Takeover Code and the Listing Rules, he is one of a handful of law firm partners in the U.K. to be recognized as a leading lawyer for corporate/M&A and equity capital markets.

Mark is head of M&A in EMEA and co-head of the UK Investment Banking business. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1994 as an analyst in London, worked in the Healthcare Group in New York from 1996 until 1997 and spent the following three years in the Advisory Group in London. In 2000, Mark worked in the Equity Capital Markets Group in New York and in 2001, he became a vice president and returned to London to work on the UK Coverage team. He joined the Natural Resources Group in 2007 and was chief operating officer of the group in EMEA. Prior to assuming his current role in 2011, Mark was co-chief operating officer of UK Investment Banking. He was named managing director in 2005 and partner in 2010. Mark earned a BA from Cambridge University. 

Lucy has been a Partner at PwC since 2006. She leads PwC’s public bid support team and is also the UK Deals COO and a member of the Deals leadership team. Lucy has 20 years experience in the full range of transactional work for corporate and private equity clients, including deals in the public arena. Lucy has extensive direct experience leading hostile and friendly public bids, supporting corporate bidders and targets as well as responding to activist investors.

Corporate Partner with 20 years of experience of M&A deals.

Works on a wide range of corporate transactions including mergers, acquisitions and disposals (in the public and private markets) and joint ventures. Particular experience in the financial services and real estate sectors.

Has been involved in a number of leading transactions.

‘Adam Bogdanor is a bright lawyer and experienced with transactional work.’(Client quotes from Legal 500 UK, London: Insurance: Corporate and Regulatory).

A regular speaker at external seminars and has written articles published by newspapers such as the Financial Times and City AM.

A member of the Company Law Sub-Committee of the City of London Law Society.