Harper Macleod ranked in top three for dealmaking in Scotland

The corporate team at Harper Macleod enjoyed a record year in 2015, seeing it ranked in the top three dealmakers in Scotland.

Led by partner Donald Munro, the firm closed more than 73 deals with a combined disclosed value in excess of £1 billion.

That performance saw it ranked in third place in an independent measure of deal activity in Scotland, the Business Insider Deals Table.

Mr Munro said: “We had a strong year in 2015 with a rise of more than 40 per cent on our activity in the previous year and deals across a wide range of sectors. We fully expect 2016 to deliver even more, despite the economic challenges businesses face, with the appetite for investment in Scotland continuing to grow.”

Some of the firm’s notable deals included advising on the sale of Scottish-based broker First Independent Finance Ltd to the LDF group, creating a £400m combined group. The team also advised on a series of investments by life sciences venture capital fund Epidarex.

The firm’s start-up and high-growth team, led by partner Paula Skinner, works with hundreds of businesses and entrepreneurs and advises organisations including Entrepreneurial Spark and the Scottish EDGE fund.

Martin Darroch, chief executive of Harper Macleod, said: “In a Scottish legal landscape which has been transformed in recent years, we are one of the only independent firms which can offer a credible full service offering and this result is another indication of this.

“During the year we trebled our presence in Edinburgh, and this is one of the factors which also now sees us the firm of choice for many of the UK’s leading law firms for the Scottish aspects of larger transactions.”