Perry joined the firm in March 2012 as the Head of Private Equity for the Europe & Middle East practice. Prior to joining Reed Smith, Perry was a partner at SJ Berwin where he had been since 1992.
Perry's 20 year career in private equity has allowed him to develop experience across many elements of the asset class and includes venture and development capital, mid-market buyouts, corporate M & A with management teams and investee companies on their buy-and-build strategies and the Exit transactions whether by way of trade sales, secondary acquisitions or flotations on the AIM.
Perry has a well respected venture capital practice, advising VCs on both technology and life science investments. His clients include Advent Venture Partners, Lansdowne Partners, Accel, DFJ Esprit, Schroder Ventures Life Sciences and a host of others. Perry is ranked as a leading advisor in both the Chambers Directory and Legal 500 who refer to him as "...the most prolific advisor to VC funds in London".
Perry also acts for a number of private equity houses operating in the mid-market on their management and institutional buyout transactions encompassing a wide range of sectors but including, in particular, technology, healthcare, financial services and leisure. Perry's clients include AnaCap Financial Partners, Apax Partners, ECI Partners, Inflexion Private Equity, Lyceum Capital Partners, NBGI Private Equity and HIG Capital.
Recent transactions on which Perry and his team have advised include the take private of Premier Research Group. Advising long standing client ECI Partners, the team assisted with the recommended offer for PRG, an AIM listed company with a leading market position delivering a wide range of late-stage clinical trial services to a broad base of pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers.
Perry also advised Advent Venture partners and all the shareholders in Snell & Wilcox (UK) Limited on the £75m merger of its broadcasting technology business with LDC investee company, Pro-Bel. The two companies, headquartered in the UK, design hardware and software for the broadcasting industries to enhance the quality of content in production and post-production.
More recently, Perry advised on the acquisition of Ruffler Bank plc for Anacap Financial Partners. This is the first time a non-captive UK private equity house has been awarded a banking licence by the FSA. Ruffler Bank has become the first UK deposit-taking institutiton to be bought by private equity. Ruffler Bank was built up by lending to finance coin-operated vending amusement and fairground machines in the leisure industry.
As regards technology transactions, Perry advised on three interesting deals in the latter half of 2011:
Perry advised investors Rapid Realisation Fund and Lansdowne Partners on their equity investment in Infinity SDL Limited, a data storage business (which has now also received investment from RIT Capital Partners).
Perry advised all of the shareholders, including Advent Venture Partners, on the sale of the entire issued share capital of Fizzback Group (Holdings) Limited to Nice Systems Limited.
Perry also acts for a number of private equity houses operating in the mid-market on their management and institutional buyout transactions encompassing a wide range of sectors but including, in particular, financial services, healthcare, leisure, renewables and TMT. Perry's clients include AnaCap Financial Partners, Apax Partners, ECI Partners, Inflexion Private Equity, HIG Europe, Risk Capital Partners, Nova Capital Management, Pamplona and Sovereign Capital.