About
Will is head of our derivatives and trading practice, and advises investment funds, banks, pension funds, high-net-worth individuals and corporates on a wide spectrum of trading, hedging and financing transactions. This covers the full range of derivatives, as well as prime brokerage, repo, crypto, debt trading, commodities and clearing.
Will has a broad experience of trading, custody, brokerage and clearing agreements for derivative products, repos/stock lending and other financial instruments.
He advises sell- and buy-side clients across a wide range of asset classes, and on the associated regulations and issues of market-practice. He covers debt trading transactions and cryptocurrencies and has a particular focus on trading and financing arrangements for hedge funds and credit funds. He has clients in the US, the UK, Europe, Hong Kong and Australia. He advises on global trading issues, and has extensive knowledge of local requirements in markets such as India and China. Will has particular interests in legal issues concerning prime brokerage, and structured derivative financing and balance sheet transactions for direct lending funds.
Like most of the derivatives and trading practice at Macfarlanes, Will has spent time in-house in leading financial institutions, spending six months at The Royal Bank of Scotland and ten months in the Securities Division of Goldman Sachs International.
Experience
- Advising a challenger bank on the structuring of property index swaps for a new house price investment product.
- Advising a FTSE 100 insurer on bespoke collateral mechanisms in connection with long-dated swaps.
- Advising two of the largest private pension funds in Europe on their swap, repo, futures and clearing documentation, and on Dodd-Frank and EMIR issues.
- Advising several emerging market specialist funds on investing in synthetic products to access the Indian and Chinese markets.
- Advising a leading private equity house in relation to deal contingent FX trades to mitigate currency risk on cross-border sales and purchases.
- Advising several leading credit funds on loan repo and back-leverage products.
- Advising a leading global prime broker on its prime brokerage products, documents and negotiations across EMEA and APAC.