The team
The people you meet are the people who do the work.
Between us we have been the adviser, the founder, the general counsel, the chief executive, the investor and the board. The senior people who take your work on do it, with specialists and senior practitioners from our wider team around them.
Matt Parry-Hann
Partner · Legal and corporate finance · London
- Chief executive of The Epicurean Club through its sale; shareholder in its parent, Cirrus Inns
- Over 40 transactions led
- Nearly nine years' legal expertise at Jones Day and Addleshaw Goddard
Private equity, venture capital and M&A lawyer at Jones Day and Addleshaw Goddard, before moving in-house as General Counsel and a member of the senior management team at Cirrus Inns, a high-growth consumer and hospitality business.
Led the execution of over 40 transactions (acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures and equity and debt fundraisings), scaling the Cirrus Inns group to over £40m turnover up to exit.
Formed The Epicurean Club, a members' club and booking platform for premium inns, and ran it as chief executive until its sale in 2022 - buying the booking site Inn Places for it along the way. The Club was a subsidiary of Cirrus Inns, where he was also a shareholder, and which merged with Liberation Group later that year.
Led integration and platform build inside the acquirer afterwards, and advises start-ups and scale-ups on strategy and operations, including AI integration.
Over 12 years of lived operational and board-level experience alongside the legal and strategic work.
Jamie Ritchie
Partner · Legal and corporate finance · London
- Legal expertise from Ashurst (Associate, London & Paris) and Wilsons (Partner, Head of London)
- Banking and Investment experience at Bank of America and IBIS Capital
- Built and exited businesses
Jamie combines legal, corporate finance and investment expertise with first-hand experiences as a founder and business owner.
He has built and exited businesses in professional services, media and technology, both from inception and through buy-and-build strategies.
His career spans law, with Ashurst in London & Paris and as Partner and Head of London at Wilsons; and corporate finance and investment, with Bank of America and as a partner at IBIS Capital.
Having worked on over 50 transactions as an adviser, investor or business owner, spanning private equity, venture capital and M&A across a range of sectors, Jamie brings a practical understanding of deals from each side of the table.
Jamie advises business owners, founders and high-net-worth investors who are buying a business, planning an exit or raising capital.
Directors
Specialists who lead their own practice areas.
Steve Oxley
Director · Employment · London
- Trained at Withers; 38 years at Wilsons, as managing partner and senior partner
- Chair of Help for Heroes, 2008 to 2015
- Chair of Chickpea Group, the pub group
Steve is an employment and education lawyer with nearly four decades' experience. He acts for senior executives and for the organisations that employ them, and knows what matters to each side. His clients range from financial services, retail and manufacturing businesses to charities, independent schools and academies.
He trained at Withers and spent most of his career at Wilsons in Salisbury, where he built and led the firm's employment and education teams and served as both managing partner and senior partner. He also spent seven years as its business development director, growing the firm's work in the region, in London and internationally.
His work centres on senior executives: their appointment terms and packages, negotiated exits, and the employment side of growing a business and preparing it for sale.
Steve is a seasoned non-executive director. He was chair of Help for Heroes from 2008 to 2015 and of Odstock Private Care from 2009 to 2020, and a non-executive director of Salisbury Business Improvement District from 2016 to 2023. He now chairs Chickpea Group, the independent pub group, and the fundraising committee of the Stars Appeal, the Salisbury District Hospital charity, and is a governor of Dauntsey's School.
Beyond the principals
The wider team
Our extended team includes senior practitioners with general counsel and senior legal experience at PLC level, at major consumer and hospitality brands, and in high-growth businesses.
That adds sector knowledge in retail, leisure, hospitality and brand partnerships to our core M&A and corporate finance work.