Banking Lawyer for FS - Senior Manager or Manager

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Job description

Tax

We help our clients stay ahead of changes that impact their businesses, navigating complexity and risk. We deliver deep tax technical and legal expertise, while providing the critical context to make informed and compliant decisions. With clients ranging from multinational organisations and public sector bodies to entrepreneurs and family businesses, the work we do is diverse.

Hear from Ed Stacey, Tax People Leader about what a career in Tax could mean for you - from development, to our culture, to what we value in our people when building our team.

PwC is one of the largest professional services firms in the world. Since 1 Oct 2016 PwC's legal capabilities have been fully integrated into the rest of PwC's business as a multidisciplinary practice. Before that, PwC Legal was a PwC network firm for more than 20 years. The legal offerings provided by PwC's legal network match those provided by any traditional law firm but our operating model means that we offer a seamless multidisciplinary service combining our legal capabilities with the expertise which exists across PwC, including tax, consulting, transaction services, business recovery, sustainability & climate change, corporate finance, forensics and audit and assurance. No other law firm offers this integrated service.

PwC's Legal network is the largest legal network by geography. PwC has over 3,700 lawyers in 98 countries and immigration service providers in 116 countries.

PwC's Legal Banking and Finance team has been working with domestic and international borrower and lender clients for nearly 20 years. Our transactional banking lawyers are client facing, whilst also advising on matters connected to PwC's own bank facilities. Our lawyers advise clients on a large variety of real estate and development finance transactions as well as leveraged and acquisition finance deals and general, corporate and receivables finance transactions. The strength of the PwC brand as well as the size and scale of the PwC wider business means that there is a huge amount of variety in terms of the transactions our lawyers at all levels are involved in.
The team work with a number of longstanding annuity clients but also have the benefit of being able to leverage the extensive client base of the wider PwC Tax, Consulting and Deals practices to give them access to an enviable number of other high profile clients.

In the last 12 months, notwithstanding the Covid pandemic, the team advised on transactions with an aggregate debt size of around £4bn, showing PwC Legal's strong technical expertise and high-value deal capability. Despite the team's relatively small size currently, they regularly act on high profile, award winning transactions including on the largest lockdown private borrower new loan facility in 2020 for Lazari Investments.
The team has a very strong borrower-focused practice which advises some of the largest privately-owned businesses in the UK, a number of international and domestic real estate funds, family offices, ultra-high net worth individuals, international investors and large multinationals.

The team's lender-focused practice has grown year on year and they now act for a variety of credit funds and other private/alternative lenders. With the team being embedded within the wider FS Tax practice at PwC, this is an area of focus and development for the team.

The team currently comprises 1 partner, 4 qualified lawyers, 3 trainees and a paralegal but has aspirations to grow substantially over the next 2-3 years to reflect their growing annuity client base and presence in the market acting for borrowers and, more recently, lenders. PwC has aspirations to continue growing its Legal offering and the growth of the Banking and Finance legal practice is a significant part of those plans, being a growth priority within PwC's tax/legal business.

What we are looking for

We are looking for commercial and entrepreneurial lawyers with a strong transactional banking background who are willing and able to turn their hand to a variety of transactions and who have solid real estate finance experience.
The person in this role will enjoy an interesting, diverse and challenging workload. Many of our longstanding borrower and lender clients focus on real estate so a substantial amount of our lawyers' work comprises real estate finance transactions. However, with a growing focus on other transactions, previous experience of leverage and/or general finance would also be helpful as opportunities to work on those types of transactions also arise.
On a day to day basis, the successful candidate(s) will;

• undertake the drafting and/or negotiation of the principal finance documents -including the term sheet, loan agreement, security agreements and intercreditor documentation.
• Depending on their seniority, they will have responsibility for the oversight of, or supporting on, transactions from term sheet phase to closing, working alongside other members of the team and liaising with clients, counterparties and other professional advisors.
  

A large proportion of our work is carried out alongside non-lawyers in PwC such as tax and deals advisers. Not only does this give us access to projects that other law firms don't see, but it has helped our lawyers develop a deeper understanding of business issues and the commercial context for our advice. We believe that delivering projects as part of a multi-disciplinary PwC team means our lawyers have a better understanding of the wider commercial context of projects and that allows them to be general business advisors and to deliver more value to our clients.

Being a small and busy team, there is a variety of work and there is the opportunity to get involved in technically challenging projects for high profile clients in a meaningful way. The successful candidate(s) will be energetic, enthusiastic and keen to embrace the challenge of turning their hand to many different types of banking transactions rather than doing similar deals time and time again. An entrepreneurial spirit and agility is a must!
Each member of the team is encouraged to develop relationships with clients and with the professionals in PwC with whom we work on a daily basis. Client relationships are encouraged to be held and built at all levels so this helps individuals build their business cases for progression within the firm.

Requirements

• Qualified solicitor in England & Wales or equivalent common law jurisdiction.
• 3+ years PQE (for the mid level lawyer role) and 6 years + PQE (for the senior lawyer role).
• A general finance banking background (or willingness to get involved in a variety of general banking matters).
• Strong borrower and lender side property finance experience, including development finance.
• Strong technical knowledge and drafting skills are essential.
• Familiarity with standard LMA loan documentation and principles.
• Ability to think outside the box and to draft bespoke documentation.
• Ideally the candidate will have gained experience in a city firm or large regional practice.
• Strong client service skills and a commercial, business focused mind-set.
• Commercially aware and enthusiastic about business development and driving their own career.

Not the role for you?
Did you know PwC offer flexible contract arrangements as well as contingent work (ie temporary or day rate contracting)?

The skills we look for in future employees
All our people need to demonstrate the skills and behaviours that support us in delivering our business strategy. This is important to the work we do for our business, and our clients. These skills and behaviours make up our global leadership framework, 'The PwC Professional' and are made up of five core attributes; whole leadership, technical capabilities, business acumen, global acumen and relationships.

Learn more here:

The Deal
We want all of our people to feel empowered to be the best that they can be, which is why we have 'The Deal'.

Find out more about our firmwide Employee Value Proposition:

Diversity
Valuing Difference. Driving Inclusion.

We work in a changing world which offers great opportunities for people with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We seek to attract and employ the best people from the widest talent pool because creating value through diversity is what makes us strong as a business, enabling us to solve important problems and deliver value to our clients. We encourage an inclusive culture where people can be themselves, are valued for their strengths and are empowered to be the best they can be. As an organisation with an increasingly agile workforce, we also support different ways of working offering flexible working arrangements. Learn more here about our work to support an inclusive culture.