Jonathan is head of one of our corporate groups and our insurance practice. He has a corporate and corporate finance practice and has been involved in demutualisations, fund-raisings, joint ventures and private and public acquisitions.
Jonathan is included in the Hall of Fame in the latest Legal 500 rankings and also ranked band 1 in Chambers for his work in the insurance sector.
His recent work includes advising:
- Legal & General on a number of pensions derisking and reinsurance transactions including its £1.4 bn buy-in with the Sanofi pension scheme and its £4.8 bn full buy-in with Boots, the largest single transaction by number of members
- a number of Government departments including DLUHC (now MHCLG) on the self-remediation terms to be entered into by major residential property developers and DLUHC and HMT in relation to the changes to the arrangements for the provision of reinsurance by Pool Re
- Intact and RSA Group on the £6.5bn derisking of Sal Pension Scheme and the Royal Insurance Group Pension Scheme, the largest UK transaction of its kind
- on a number of M&A transactions for:
- a bidder in relation to the sale of the c.£6 billion Scottish Widows in-force bulk annuity portfolio by Lloyds Banking Group
- Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund S.A. SICAV-RAIF and its manager Amber Infrastructure Group in relation to its joint venture arrangements in relation to its initial investment in R. Power
- FNZ on the sale of financial technology provider GBST to Anchorage Capital Partners
- OMERS on the UK aspects of its acquisition of a 14% stake in BRIT from Fairfax Financial Holdings
- Standard Life Aberdeen on the £3.24 billion sale of its insurance business to Phoenix Group
- The Innovation Group on its £499 million take private by an entity controlled by funds managed by the Carlyle Group
- a number of companies on insurance business transfers including Aviva on two insurance business transfers to Irish insurers as part of its Brexit planning
- Standard Life on:
- its merger with Aberdeen Asset Management to create Standard Life Aberdeen plc and the latter on a contractual dispute with Lloyds Banking Group / Scottish Widows in relation to the attempt to terminate a series of investment management agreements
- its disposal of its Canadian business for CAN$4 billion, the acquisition of Ignis Asset Management for £390 million and its sale of Standard Life Healthcare to Discovery
- its demutualisation and flotation on the London Stock Exchange
- A number of other parties on pensions de-risking transactions including Tata Steel UK; Philips; Akzo-Nobel; and Aviva.
‘Jonathan Marks is hugely knowledgeable and very commercial. His availability and involvement in transactions is always reliably excellent….” Legal 500, 2024
“Jonathan is incredibly astute, insightful and he is able to digest extremely complex and novel structures.” … “Jonathan remains one of the stand-out lawyers in corporate insurance” Chambers UK, 2024