Simmons & Simmons has advised BlueCrest on the acquisition by its partners of Man Group’s 25.5% stake in the BlueCrest group for a total consideration of $633 million.  In addition, Simmons & Simmons advised on the simultaneous acquisition of retired co-founder Bill Reeves’ remaining interests in the BlueCrest group.

The transaction was funded by a senior debt facility arranged by HSBC and RBS, the issue of loan notes and through existing cash resources.

BlueCrest was founded in 2000 and is Europe’s third largest hedge fund, with over $25 billion of assets under management.  BlueCrest is a long-standing client of Simmons & Simmons.

The Simmons & Simmons team advising BlueCrest was led by corporate partner Colin Leaver, assisted by corporate associates Ania Rontaler, Patrick Boyd and Tom Fricke, banking partner Philip Abbott, assisted by banking associates Ayesha Qureshi, Matthew Dearden and Jessica Foong, tax partner Martin Shah assisted by tax associates Aron Joy and Candice Nichol and capital markets partner Simon Schiff and capital markets associates Nicholas Jones and Alex Fu.

Commenting on the deal, Colin Leaver said: “We are delighted to have advised BlueCrest on this complicated transaction which involved input from many departments within the firm. It was a great team effort, requiring in-depth knowledge of BlueCrest’s business and the hedge fund sector generally, acquired through our long-term relationship of advising BlueCrest as well as our large hedge fund client base.”

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised the banks, Clifford Chance advised Man Group and Slaughter and May advised Bill Reeves.