Sheffield’s MD Law’s corporate team has supported founders and business leaders to achieve a total of £80m worth of transactions in the last year.
Partner James Burdekin has built a successful team of corporate lawyers and support staff at the expanding Broomhall-based boutique firm, also attracting corporate mergers and acquisitions work and completing local to national transactions.
From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, James with his team of solicitors Natalie Gibson and Luke Turner, successfully completed 45 transactions including Management Buy Outs, Employee Ownership Trusts, trade sales, acquisitions and share buybacks with a cumulative value of £80m.
James worked on all the deals, with 16 of these transactions taking place during October 2024 totalling in excess of £35 million for the month.
Year highlights included advising on the transition of long-standing independent Sheffield brewery Abbeydale Brewery to ownership by an Employee Ownership Trust and advice to family-run Lyndhurst Cooling & Heating Services Limited during its transition to Employee Ownership Trust.
MD Law’s work on the MBO at Apex Consulting Engineers, which brought a new chapter in the story of the structural, civil and geo-environmental consultancy, is one of the finalists in Yorkshire Business Insider’s South Yorkshire Dealmakers’s Deal of the Year £2.5-10m category.
Under the MBO, the leadership team, led by Mary Fisher, Jack Shepherd and Wayne Ballance, took full ownership of the business, ensuring continuity, stability, and a renewed focus on delivering exceptional value to its clients.
James, whose appointment as a partner in 2021 was a coup for MD Law which competes with far bigger law firms dealing in this area, said: “The team has supported numerous businesses in achieving their ambitions by delivering sound, technical and practical advice and timely communication. Our expertise gets the job done and achieves effective results.
“We are delighted to have helped so many deals over the line in what has been difficult times for many businesses. The quality and complexity of transactions completed gives the team excellent forward momentum.”
MD Law’s team’s expertise includes advising a wide variety of businesses across all sectors with particular specialisms in share and assets acquisitions and disposals; company restructures and sales; terms and conditions of trade; shareholders’ agreements and partnerships, and advising on corporate governance.
Founder and partner of MD Law Matthew Dixon said, “This great achievement, especially during last October which brought some very tight timescales. The work was only possible due to the full range of business expertise that we have in-house including corporate, commercial property and employment law. We could also not have achieved this without the backing we receive from other professionals and businesses. Well done everyone and good luck to all our business clients, whom we will continue to support.”
MD Law celebrates its tenth year in business this month and acts for, and advises, insolvency professionals, businesses and individuals across the country.
Image provided by MD Law
