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Family offices and private investors

Senior counsel on your portfolio and the deals you are shown.

Private investors and family offices see more opportunities than they can properly test. We act for you deal by deal: the assessment, the diligence, the structure and the documents, with legal and corporate finance judgement in the same room. ON is led by Matt Parry-Hann and Jamie Ritchie, and the senior people who take your work on do it, with the specialists it needs around them.

Talk to us about an opportunity

What we do for investors

Where it starts

What your family wants from it

We work with a number of families, and no two want the same thing. Some want wealth that lasts generations, some want to do good with it, some want the reward of backing a business and helping it grow. The people and the dynamics differ too. We start with what matters to you, because it shapes the structure and the terms, then do the work below on the opportunities you bring us, from first look to exit.

  1. Assess

    • Testing an opportunity
    • Diligence, run for you

  2. Invest

    • Structuring the investment
    • The documents
    • Buying a business outright

  3. Hold and exit

    • After you are in

Testing an opportunity

A straight view of the business, the numbers and the terms before you commit time or money: what is there, what is missing and what to ask.

Diligence, run for you

Financial, commercial and legal diligence coordinated and read by one team, with the findings that change the price separated from the ones that do not.

Structuring the investment

Share classes, investor protections, co-investment terms and the holding structure, settled before anyone drafts.

The documents

Subscription and investment agreements, shareholders' agreements and articles, negotiated to terms that survive the next round.

Buying a business outright

Assessment, funding, structure and completion when the investment is the whole company, and the integration after it.

After you are in

Investor rights used well: reporting, consents, follow-on rounds and, when the time comes, the exit.

Why investors use us

01

We have sat where you sit

We have invested, been a partner in an investment firm and sat on boards that answer to investors. We read a deal the way you will have to live with it.
02

Deal by deal, or on retainer

Engage us for one opportunity, or pay a retainer for senior time across a pipeline. Fees can be tied to what the work achieves rather than the hours it takes.
03

Confidential

We do not name clients, their investments or the other side of a deal without written consent.

Work that shows it

An empty meeting room with a wooden table and leather chairs, overlooking a street of stone buildings through tall windows.
Family office
Legal services · Acquisition search for a family office

Building a platform in the UK legal market

A family office pursuing its own operating acquisition strategy, a legal services roll-up, needed to identify and engage suitable UK regional law firms. We drew on our relationships across the legal sector and specialist search firms to build a longlist, assess potential targets and narrow the field to a focused shortlist. We then arranged meetings with senior leadership and led initial negotiations, helping the client move from a broad acquisition strategy to direct discussions with prospective firms. Our support remains ongoing as the family office develops its acquisition plans.

Acquisition strategyTarget identificationTarget screeningManagement introductionsNegotiations
Ongoing mandate
UK legal services acquisition search
Stacks of books and open cardboard boxes of books on a packing table, with shelving behind them.
Private investor
Publishing · Transaction structuring for a private investor

Protecting investor value through complex deal structuring

A private investor involved in a complex publishing transaction needed specialist support to address a significant risk of value leakage. We were brought in to assess the structuring challenge, identify leading sector experts and coordinate their advice into a practical approach. Working with the investor and specialist advisers, we helped navigate the interlocking issues and develop a structure designed to protect the investor’s return. The resulting approach prevented more than £5m of value leakage, demonstrating the difference that focused structuring advice and coordinated execution can make to an investor’s outcome.

Transaction structuringSpecialist advisoryExpert selectionAdviser coordinationValue preservation
£5m+
Value leakage prevented · £50m EV
Private investor
Private investor · Rolling mandate

A deal-by-deal mandate

Opportunity assessment, diligence and execution for a UK private investor, across a rolling pipeline.

Deal by deal
Assessment, diligence and execution across a pipeline
A Rendesco-branded unit in a plant room
Equity events
Energy infrastructure · One continuing mandate

Rendesco

The share transactions as the shareholder base changed, alongside the bolt-on acquisitions and debt financings, under one continuing mandate.

One mandate
Asset bolt-on acquisitions, debt financings and equity events

Who does the work

Matt Parry-Hann and Jamie Ritchie, who lead ON, have lived every side of the table: the adviser, the founder, the general counsel, the chief executive, the investor and the board, in businesses of different sizes. Jamie has worked on over 50 transactions as an adviser, investor or business owner, and was a partner at IBIS Capital; Matt has led over 40 transactions and ran a business through its sale as chief executive.

Questions we get asked

Do you bring us deals?
No. We act for you on opportunities you have found or been shown. We do not recommend investments, and nothing on this site is an invitation to invest.
Will you work alongside our existing lawyers and advisers?
Yes, and it's something we're used to doing, wearing whichever of our hats the deal needs. Most families already have lawyers, accountants and wealth advisers they trust, and we work beside them. We turn a deal into the points you actually need to decide, quickly, and we're the first people you call for a view on the terms. Because we've invested ourselves, we read them as the person who has to live with them. How we work with partner firms
Do we need a company to engage you?
No. We act for individuals, families and the vehicles they invest through.
Are you regulated?
ON Consulting Limited is not regulated by the SRA or the FCA. Our legal work is done by solicitors who are regulated individually. Our regulatory position

Tell us what you are looking at.

One opportunity is enough to start. We will tell you what we would look at first and what it would cost. The earlier the call, the more we can add. The first conversation costs nothing.