About
Jat leads our Restructuring & Insolvency practice. Having represented credit and special situations funds, corporates, directors, sponsors, banks and insolvency practitioners, he sees complex issues from a variety of perspectives and offers creative and practical solutions. As well as specialising in workouts and restructurings, his wealth of experience means that he can also advise clients on real estate finance and other types of "new money" debt finance transactions.
Jat makes complex situations simple for investors and executives navigating their way through difficult times. He has done this in both a domestic and an international context, and in both private and listed company situations. His international finance experience also includes a secondment to Milan, where he assisted a local firm with the English law aspects of a securitisation and refinancing relating to a major Italian airport company. His restructuring experience includes a secondment to the restructuring group legal team at a global financial institution, where he was involved in several multi-billion dollar restructurings.
Jat is ranked by Chambers & Partners and in The Legal 500 Hall of Fame, which highlights individuals who are at the pinnacle of the profession and considered by clients and peers to provide continued excellence. He is a member of R3 and actively involved in the Institute for Turnaround, for whom he is a regular speaker.
Jat has over many years made a significant contribution to inclusion at Macfarlanes. He served on the firm's Trainee Solicitor Committee for over 13 years, performing the role of Chair for five of those years, and has been a Partner champion of our REACH (race, ethnicity and cultural heritage) and SEEN (socioeconomic equity) staff networks. He was awarded the "Workplace Hero" award at the 2019 Investing in Ethnicity Awards in recognition of his efforts. Outside the firm, he is a co-founder and steering committee member of the RIME (Restructuring & Insolvency Minority Ethnic) Network, a forum for networking and peer support between ethnic minority members of the restructuring industry.
Experience
- Advising Sadel Group on securing a £500m facility to refinance its cold storage business, Magnavale.
- Advising Dobbies Garden Centres, the UK’s largest operator of garden centres, on its restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 and related amendments to its debt facilities with Ares.
- Advising credit fund clients on the restructurings of their borrowers in sectors including consumer insurance, wealth management, IT services and manufacturing, each of which resulted in the relevant fund taking ownership.
- Advising global fashion brand, Superdry, on a complex capital and restructuring transaction which included an inter-conditional Part 26A Restructuring Plan, a refinancing of its debt facilities, a capital raising and delisting.
- Advising long-standing client Legal & General on the provision of a £265m debt facility for its build-to-rent fund with a lender club including Lloyds, NatWest and ING.
- Advising Buzz Group, the UK’s biggest omni-channel bingo business, on a restructuring process by way of a CVA, the injection of new equity and a debt restructuring.
- Advising long-standing client Realstar Group on its real estate financings including the financing aspects of its £750m residential property transaction with Quadreal and the subsequent acquisition of the balance of the UNCLE business by Quadreal.
- Advising Alchemy on its investment in, and refinancing of, Heartwood Collection (which owns the Heartwood Inn brand and the Brasserie Blanc brand founded by chef Raymond Blanc).
- Advising the insolvent parent of Wirecard UK in relation to the English law aspects of the group insolvency and the sale of the UK business.
- Advising Kew Green Hotels and its shareholders in relation to its debt restructuring, lease restructuring, certain bolt-on acquisitions (including by way of a “loan-to-own” strategy) and successful £400m exit to China Travel Service.
- Advising Active Care Group on the debt restructuring transaction under which control was taken by Sequoia via an enforcement process.