Linklaters has paid tribute to one of its leading corporate partners, who has died following a cycling accident. Iain Wagstaff, who had been with the firm for more than 20 years, died following the accident on 31 August.

“Greatly missed”

Charlie Jacobs, senior partner, said “It is with enormous sadness that we can confirm the death of Iain Wagstaff, a partner, friend and admired colleague at the firm.” Mr Jacobs added, “The firm’s thoughts are with Iain’s family as well as with his many friends at Linklaters and beyond the firm. Iain was an exceptional lawyer and a great friend to me and so many others. He will be very greatly missed.” After studying law at the University of Nottingham, he was admitted as a solicitor in 2001 and was a corporate and private equity partner based in the London office. In his corporate bio, Mr Wagstaff stated he had “an all-round corporate practice advising both corporate and financial sponsor clients on a wide range of corporate finance transactions. I am often called upon to advise at Board level, and offer commercially minded, pragmatic guidance on our clients’ most important deals and corporate governance issues.”

Career highlights

He was a boardroom adviser to many of the firm’s FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 clients, and acted on some of the largest and most complex transactions in the market, with a particular focus on public M&A and IPO transactions. Among many highlights, Mr Wagstaff advised Arcus Infrastructure on the £1.1bn sale of a 65% stake in Forth Ports to PSP, Bill Kenwright and others on the sale of Everton Football Club to Farhad Moshiri, and Siemens on its £950m acquisition of Rolls-Royce’s energy gas turbines business and on its £1.7bn acquisition of Invensys’s rail automation business. He also worked on the IPOs of Biffa, CMC Markets, Aldermore, Card Factory, Just Eat, Manx Telecom, Investec and Fresnillo. Requiem in Pace.