Head of asset
finance: Joanne Davis
No. of partners
(assistants): 4 (27)
Key lessor
clients: Barclays, Lombard, Santander, Fortis
Lease, ING Lease
Key lease broker
clients: N/A
Key manufacturer
clients: Volkswagen, MAN, JCB, Caterpillar
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New clients
gained in 2009: BNP Paribas Lease Group, Hitachi Europe
(Rail Division), Porterbrook, Stagecoach Group, Freightliner Group,
Swiss International Airlines, TUI Travel, Lombard, Singers
Corporate Finance
Busy times over at the leasing arm of
Shoosmiths. Joanne Davis manages to handle all of the firm’s
smaller ticket asset finance contentious and non-contentious work
while being the only partner in her department.
She copes by having a bevy of, as she calls
them, “high-class associates on their road to partnership”, each
with their individual areas of work.
These include Roger Potgieter, who deals with
motor finance work out of Northampton; Fiona Hayles (covering asset
finance and regulatory issues from Birmingham); Roger Dobson
(consumer credit and asset finance commercial work); and Paul
Estlin (a regulatory specialist based in Manchester).
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By GlobalDataIn total, Davis has 27 fee earners working
under her – not bad considering the fact she joined the firm from
BPE Solicitors back in January 2008 to open the firm’s asset
finance capability in Birmingham. She brought with her most of the
clients she built-up while working at BPE.
Due to client expansion, her department, in
terms of number of lawyers, has more than tripled in size. Today,
spread across three offices, Davis has five associates and 22
assistants (junior lawyers, paralegals, legal execs, etc) working
for her.
Davis holds down the job of managing all of
this while also handling her hobby horse – equipment finance fraud.
She has been involved in all the major asset finance frauds of the
past year – Global EPP, Euro Hire UK Ltd, Gwent Fleet and
Thorneycroft.
On the non-contentious side, Davis’ team has
advised: Lombard North Central on provision of asset finance to
motor lessors; Santander on the re-documentation of a major car
dealers’ stocking facilities; and Volkswagen Bank on its
replacement of Volkswagen Financial Services for all wholesale
funding provided to VW brands in the UK.
Bigger ticket work is handled by Chris
McClure, who recently joined the firm from Blake Lapthorn, where he
headed up the big-ticket practice. Among work he had handled was
the enforcement of a £1.2 million yacht mortgage for Lombard.
Harold Brako handles receivables financing at the firm.
Overall, the volume of new asset finance work
rose year-on-year by 92.2 percent – and during the first half of
this year by 41 percent.
In other work, Davis is currently advising the
FLA’s technology committee on its guidance notes on bundling leases
– i.e. where services and ad revenue are part of lease
agreements.
