Deborah Gregory led a team of lawyers from Hogan Lovells' Business Restructuring and Insolvency, Real Estate, Employment, Tax and Insurance practices on the sale of the business and assets of the Parabis Group. Hogan Lovells advised the syndicate of lenders and AlixPartners (as the Administrators) on the complex pre-packaged sales of the business and assets of the Parabis Group.

The Parabis Group, a provider of legal services to the insurance industry, was one of the first approved firms to utilise the complex Alternative Business Structures which were introduced pursuant to The Legal Services Act 2007. The introduction of the ABS structures allowed non-lawyers to invest in, manage and own law firms.  The Parabis Group had tried to optimise its offering to clients by providing the full range of services, including medical and physiotherapy services.

Once it became clear that, despite additional support from the lenders, a sale of the whole Group was not achievable, Hogan Lovells worked with AlixPartners to put together a series of interlinking transactions which resulted in the pre-packaged sales of the assets and business of various parts of the Group, as well as a sale of the shares in the ABS companies, to a number of different purchasers, including the sale of Parabis's defendant business, consumer business and associated assets to a newly incorporated entity established by three of the original founders of the Parabis Group.

Commenting, Deborah Gregory, Partner, Finance Practice Group, at Hogan Lovells said: "Unravelling the ABS structure in this way and selling on to a number of different purchasers presented a number of interesting and challenging legal and commercial issues which we were able to overcome and we are delighted that the sales successfully completed on 23 November, preserving almost 2000 jobs."

Other Hogan Lovells partners involved in the transaction were Paul McLoughlin (BRI), Oliver Chamberlain (Real Estate), Ed Bowyer (Employment), Kevin Ashman (tax) who were supported by Chris Horrocks (BRI), Gemma Sage (BRI), James Maltby (BRI), Will Beck (BRI), Jayne Sheffield (BRI), Clare Reynolds (BRI), Neal Bhattacharyya (Real Estate), Tom Eyre-Brook (Tax), Matthew Sharkey (IT & IP) and Nina Tulloch (Insurance).