Julian Smith

Partner

photo for Julian Smith

What can I do for you

Julian is a corporate finance partner with nearly 30 years' experience and a particular focus on the health and care sector and healthtech. He works with clients embarking on major corporate projects, including acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures and shareholder collaborations.

Julian leads our award winning (Laing Buisson's Independent Sector Health Law Firm of the Year, 2022) firm-wide independent sector health and care practice and healthcare M&A practices, helping clients to navigate the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly changing sector.

Julian also steers our healthtech team working with specialist tech, commercial and IP lawyers and our teams who specialise in life sciences, medical devices, pharma and pharmacy work.

What do others say

In a recent independent client service review, a client said that she "really values his approach to team work – Julian is clearly a team player and there is no ego involved. His whole approach is based on progressing the project. He is solutions driven and has the end goal clearly in sight."

Supporting your ambitions

Julian's ability to build relationships and manage legal teams has enabled him to help clients successfully complete what have been viewed as strategic, once in a lifetime and complex transactions.

Highlights include leading:

  • Various £100m+ acquisitions for large corporates including the UK businesses of various Fortune 500 groups
  • Strategic divestments such as the sale of Bupa Home Healthcare to Celesio and the sale by an entrepreneur of a sector leading international business to a listed US trade buyer
  • Bolt-on acquisition programmes for Aspris, Elysium Healthcare and Stantec Inc
  • Disposals/exits for entrepreneurs including leading a £700m disposal of a business based in the UK, US and various other jurisdictions and the sale of strategic stakes in their business such as the investment by Synova Capital in Preventx 
  • Large multi-disciplinarary projects which leverage our understanding of the NHS in ground breaking transactions for businesses such as Synlab and other well-know outsource and insource providers in relation to their largest transactions with the NHS
  • Healthcare legal due diligence projects supporting £1b+ transactions in conjunction with US and other law global law firms where our understanding of the UK health sector is key

What else should you know?

Perhaps a sign of the times, almost every transaction Julian has worked on in the last 18 months has been cross-border, typically advising North American acquirers of UK businesses, but also helping UK sellers leverage the international market. One transaction involved leading the legal work across eight different jurisdictions in four continents on an exit by the founder entrepreneur.

 

jigsaw

What our clients say about us

“I think Mills & Reeve are a wonderful firm. The support they have provided to us in a really difficult area has been brilliant, collaborative and commercially minded. The team were absolutely wonderful and a joy to work with. Amazing advice and support and a real collaborative effort with us. I can't thank them enough for getting us through some really tough times and doing so with an amazing can-do attitude.”

“They are friendly, fast, always available and always on top of the game. I tend to judge my legal team against the other side's legal team and never doubt Mills & Reeve is the better of the two.”

“All interactions have been very clear. Responses to questions have always been very swift and unambiguous. Our company, and my family, have used various services in Mills & Reeve with the same level of satisfaction.”

“I value the fact that Mills & Reeve are recognised as a good place to work in the UK Best Companies survey. This aligns with the values of our business and means that Mills & Reeve can share what is required to achieve this status with our business.”