Head of asset
finance: Kevin Heath
No. of partners
(assistants): 8 (3)
Key lessor
clients: Lloyds UDT, First Auto Financial Services,
General Asset Management Ltd, ING Lease (UK), Abbey National,
Southern Finance, British Credit Trust
Key lease broker
clients: Shire Leasing, FASCAP
Key manufacturer
clients: Paccar Financial Services, RCI Financial
Services, Toyota Financial Services
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New clients
gained in 2009: Lombard, HBOS, Paccar, A&L, NAB Group,
Clydesdale, Fortis Lease, Hitachi Capital, Liberty Leasing
The contentious part of Salans’ asset finance
team may only have one partner – the well known Kevin Heath –
compared with seven in the firm’s non-contentious arm, yet it still
does a fair proportion of the work of the asset finance
department.
This is also doubly impressive given the
quality of the lawyers doing transactional work at the firm:
Stephen Finch, Salans’ global chairman, Howard Cohen, the firm’s
London managing partner, Paula Howard, head of banking, and also
Mike Kilbey who joined the firm in 2008 from Lloyds TSB, where he
was legal director for its in-house division.
Much of the year-on-year increase in the
department’s billings in 2008, up 10 percent, and again for the
same amount during the first half of this year, is attributable to
the contentious work of the business. It acted on the Global EPP
case and for Liberty Leasing, Hermes Group, Fortis Lease, Lombard
and Hitachi capital Limited on the EuroHire UK claims for wrongful
interference against Irish financiers.
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By GlobalDataOther key work has been advising on standstill
agreements (where lenders, usually larger ones, seek to avoid
lessees going into administration by restructuring deals through
such techniques as payment holidays), particularly for Lloyds UDT.
The firm is also advising on asset finance issues arising out of
the administrations of MK Airlines and Brent Plant Limited.
It has also been busy on the corporate finance
front, acting for a large motor finance lender in a $300 million
deal related to a multi-currency sale and purchase of insurance
backed receivables relating to the finance of motor dealers across
76 jurisdictions.
