Robert Ardern

• Represented a global manufacturer and distributor of durable medical equipment in its sale to a private equity consortium, including the carveout restructuring and vendor due diligence for over 20 countries.
• Represented the largest publicly traded pawn platform in the United States and Latin America and its UK subsidiary on their £351 million acquisition of a leading publicly traded UK-based operator of pawn stores.
• Represented a worldwide provider of payment technology and software solutions in a joint venture with a leading bank to offer digital payment solutions to small and medium business customers across Germany.
• Counsel to an electric vehicle manufacturer in a series of equity financings totaling $1 billion and including two separate conversions of debt to equity of over $600 million.
• Represented a Thai conglomerate on its $10.6 billion acquisition of a UK-based multinational grocery and general merchandiser’s Thai and Malaysian operations.
• Represented a U.S. multinational financial technology company on its successful multijurisdictional competitive auction bid to acquire a European payments business.
• Represented a UK-based food delivery service on its €9 billion merger with a Dutch online food ordering service.
• Represented a U.S. health care marketing company on its acquisition of a UK health care PR group.
• Represented a U.S. private equity sponsor on a $44 million Series A investment round into a UK sanctions business.
• Represented a Swiss financial services company on its CHf3 billion auction sale of its payment services division to a French payments and transactional services company.
• Represented a U.S. health care company on its acquisition of a UK healthtech business.
• Represented a U.S. industrial company on a multi-jurisdictional European reorganization.
• Represented a semiconductor manufacturer on its $600 million business sale and IP license to a major multinational technology company.
• Represented an automotive technology company on its $230 million Series A capital raise.
• Represented a U.S. private capital investor in the establishment of a cross-border southern European renewables joint venture.
• Represented a global online social media company on its participation in a Series E capital raise for a German-based music streaming company.
• Represented an infrastructure investment firm on its acquisition and subsequent £612 million sale of a smart metering business.
• Represented a technology company in its $350 million sale of its embedded computer vision business to a UK-based semiconductor and software design company.
• Represented a home builder on its £1.1 billion acquisition of a construction company’s housing and regeneration businesses.

Robert Ardern, a partner in Alston & Bird’s London office, is a member of the firm’s Corporate & Business Transactions Group. He focuses his practice on international and domestic corporate finance transactions.

He advises both public and private companies and financial sponsors across multiple sectors on a broad range of complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, joint ventures, carve-outs, restructurings, corporate governance, and other general corporate advisory matters.

Before joining the firm, Rob was a managing associate at a London-headquartered Magic Circle law firm, where he practiced in London and Amsterdam, and served on secondment to IFM Investors and the Natwest Group.

Robert has been recognized by MergerLinks as being amongst the UK’s top up-and-coming corporate lawyers most active on UK listing authority deals.

Robert received his B.A. in jurisprudence, with honors, from St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.

Bar Admissions

• Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales

Education

• University of Law (L.P.C., 2010)
• University of Oxford (B.A., 2008)