About Mark Austin

Mark is a corporate partner in our global transactions group, specialising in capital markets.

His experience includes public and private securities offerings of all types, as well as M&A and general corporate work across a number of sectors. He regularly advises a range of corporate and investment bank clients.

Mark chairs the Listing Authority Advisory Panel, a practitioner panel that advises the Financial Conduct Authority on primary markets policy and regulation issues. He is also a member of the FCA's Markets Practitioner Panel, which provides independent input to the FCA from the point of view of financial market participants and of the Primary Markets Group, which advises the London Stock Exchange on capital markets matters. In addition he is a member of the Company Law Committee of the City of London Law Society.  He also sits on the Capital Markets Industry Task Force, which was announced by the Chancellor in July 2022.

He advised Lord Hill on the UK Listing Review last year.  In October last year he was appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the independent chair of the UK Secondary Capital Raising Review, which was asked to suggest reforms to the capital raising process for listed companies.  He delivered the Review to the Chancellor in July 2022.  

Recent work

• Advising on the IPOs of Pod Point, Darktrace, Deliveroo, Cazoo (through a US de-SPAC), Pepco Group, Trainline, Watches of Switzerland, Network International, Funding Circle, Aston Martin, Quilter, Bakkavor, Alfa, Worldpay, McCarthy & Stone, Sophos, DFS, Virgin Money, Spire Healthcare, SSP, Zoopla, TSB, Poundland, Arrow Global, Partnership, Perform Group, Fresnillo, Gondola Holdings (Pizza Express), Hansen Transmissions, QinetiQ, Britvic, Virgin Mobile and eircom; and the proposed IPOs of Rubix, Logicor, ReAssure, Helios Towers, CPA Global, Cabot, Misys, Arqiva, Pure Gym, The Priory, New Look, United Biscuits, Travelex and P3.
• Advising on rights issues and open offers, including recent rights issues by Aston Martin, Whitbread and Shaftesbury as well as by Cineworld, Laird, Informa, BBA Aviation, Serco, LSE, Barclays, all three capital raising by Lloyds in 08/09, Wolseley, D S Smith, Lamprell, Balfour Beatty, National Express, Centrica and the proposed rights issue by Amec, as well as open offers by the AA, Barclays and Kenmare Resources.
• Advising on placings, including undocumented placings in 2020 by Aston Martin, Compass, National Express, SSP and Auto Trader, advising BIS on the ABB sell-downs in Royal Mail, UKFI on HMT's trading plan in relation to Lloyds, UKFI on the ABB sale by HMT of 7 per cent of Lloyds in March 2014 and the bookrunners on the ABB sale by HMT of 6 per cent of Lloyds in September 2013, as well as placings by Ultra Electronics, NMC Health, Investec, Phoenix, Pennon, Workspace, Hammerson, Serco, Shaftesbury, G4S, Perform Group and BTG and on sell-downs in Network International, Trainline, Poundland, Spire Healthcare, MicroFocus and Virgin Money.
• Advising on mergers and acquisitions, including advising Spire Healthcare on its takeover approach from Ramsay Healthcare, Northgate on its merger with Redde to form ReddeNorthgate, ZPG on its take-private by Silver Lake, Laird on its take-private by Advent, Partnership on its merger with Just Retirement, the LSE on its proposed merger with Deutsche Borse, Perform Group on its take-private by Access Industries, BAE on its proposed merger with EADS using a dual-listed company structure, CPPIB and Onex on their bid for Tomkins, GMG on its bid with Apax for Emap, and eircom on its take-private by Babcock and Brown.
• Advising Bank of America as sponsor on the acquisition by Just Eat Takeaway of Grubhub, Barclays as sponsor on the takeover by Informa of UBM, Deutsche Bank as sponsor on the acquisition by Reckitt Benckiser of Mead Johnson and on the demerger of gocompare.com from esure, Morgan Stanley and Evercore as joint sponsors on the acquisition by Shire of Baxalta, Morgan Stanley as sponsor to Afren on its restructuring and refinancing, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank as joint sponsors on the demerger of Indivior from Reckitt Benckiser, Morgan Stanley on the buy-out by ENRC of the Camrose Group, the re-domicile to the UK of WPP as well as on the step-up to premium listing of each of Entertainment One and C&C Group.

His clients include Deliveroo, Aston Martin, Cazoo, Trainline, Funding Circle, Compass, Auto Trader, Hargreaves Lansdown, SSP, Spire Healthcare and ReddeNorthgate.