Rowan Aspinwall

Legal Director
About

Rowan's practice is in domestic and cross-border corporate restructuring and insolvency, acting for a variety of funds, clearing banks, insolvency practitioners, corporates and property advisors. He specialises in distressed real estate situations and work-outs and has particular expertise advising on company voluntary arrangements. He has worked on a number of high profile CVA mandates.

Rowan has experience across a wide range of sectors, most notably, hospitality, leisure and retail. He spent a 10 month secondment to the special situations team of a UK clearing bank dealing with restructuring, work-out and insolvency issues with a significant focus on businesses holding UK real estate assets.

Areas of FocusRestructuring
Professional QualificationsSolicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales

EXPERIENCE

  • Advising the drinks group Conviviality and appointed administrators in connection with the sale of its retail business, which included the Bargain Booze and Wine Rack brands. The transaction saved approximately 1,700 jobs
  • Advising the casual dining business Gourmet Burger Kitchen in relation to its successful proposal for (and implementation of) a CVA
  • Advising the boards of directors of approximately 200 Carillion plc subsidiaries following the liquidation of their listed parent company
  • Advising a creditor client on the restructuring of one of the UK’s largest private hospital operators, resulting in a major recapitalisation of the business (£2 billion+ capital structure)
  • Advising the sellers in relation to the successful sale of an English and Irish commercial property backed loan portfolio and ancillary rights sale with a face value of circa €500 million
  • Advising the sellers in relation to a UK real estate backed loan portfolio sale with circa £2 billion of loan assets
  • Advising the lender and appointed Administrators on the trading and eventual sale of a theme park (undisclosed sum)
  • Advising the Irish National Asset Management Agency in relation to a circa £200 million debt owed to a high-profile property development group. This was secured over five London aparthotels which were sold via a series of interlocking CVAs
Education
  • University of Birmingham, Law and Business LLB (Hons)
  • Legal Practice Course, College of Law, Birmingham

Publications

  • Tenant insolvency - how landlords should approach a CVA, 23 Sep 2016

Seminars

  • Invited speaker to the Academy of European Law's inaugural Summer Course on Insolvency Proceedings within the EU (Trier (Germany), 11 - 13 June 2018). The presentation covered topics including Schemes of Arrangement as a restructuring tool and the new Directive on insolvency, restructuring and second chance as well as the implications of Brexit for insolvency and restructuring
  • Invited speaker to the Court Administration of Latvia and the Academy of European Law's course on cross-border insolvency proceedings within the EU (Riga (Latvia), 27 - 28 August 2018). The course covered key features of the recast insolvency regulation
  • Invited speaker to the Court Administration of Latvia and the Academy of European Law's course on cross-border insolvency proceedings within the EU (Riga (Latvia), 8 - 9 April 2019). The course covered key features of the recast insolvency regulation

Prior Experience

  • 2013 to 2016, Senior Associate, DLA Piper, London (Restructuring Group)
  • 2008 to 2013, Associate, DLA Piper, London (Restructuring Group)
  • 2006 to 2008, Trainee Solicitor, DLA Piper, Birmingham and Singapore

Memberships And Affiliations

  • The Law Society of England and Wales

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