Neil is a Director in our Banking and Finance team, based in Edinburgh. His core practice areas are property finance, securitisation and structured finance, acquisition finance and corporate and commercial banking.
He acts for a number of lenders ranging from UK institutional lenders (including clearing banks and building societies) to private credit providers, debt funds, investors and lenders active in the SME lending space. Neil often works with the firm’s Restructuring and Business Advisory team on the finance aspects of debt restructurings and distressed business and property work-outs. In 2015, he completed a nine-month secondment in the corporate and business banking legal team of Clydesdale Bank, and in 2021 was seconded to the structured and asset-backed real estate finance team at Clifford Chance in London.
He retains an interest in law reform, having worked at the Scottish Law Commission earlier in his career, and he is a member of the SLC’s advisory group on Execution of Documents (and was previously a member of the advisory group on Moveable Transactions). He has also previously tutored on business and commercial law at Edinburgh Law School and Glasgow Law School.
Neil has extensive experience acting for debt funds, arrangers, funders, purchasers, and sellers in loan book trading, involving both performing and non-performing Scottish loans and mortgages, having acted on some of the market-leading transactions in this area in recent years. He also specialises in a range of debt capital markets and securitisation transactions involving Scottish assets, in particular residential mortgage-backed securitisation (RMBS) and covered bond programmes. In recent years, Neil’s practice in this area has expanded to include the sale and securitisation of other asset classes, such as personal loans, credit cards, and car finance receivables.
Neil also regularly acts for both lenders and borrowers in real estate and structured finance transactions (with particular experience in Scottish limited partnership finance structures), both in the cross-border UK/Europe and Scottish markets. In recent years, he has been closely involved in the sale/purchase, financing, and refinancing of some of the largest shopping centres and hotels in Scotland. Through his work in this area Neil is a member of the firm’s real estate finance and hospitality and leisure sector groups.
As a consequence of his work in the securitisation and real estate finance sectors, Neil is also involved in financial products and services and, in particular, drafting standard-form lending documentation for various residential and commercial lenders (ranging from new-to-market, existing institutional, and specialised lenders).
In 2015, Neil completed a nine-month secondment in the corporate and business banking legal team of a UK bank and, from 2012 – 2017, tutored on business and commercial law at Edinburgh Law School. He is a member of the Scottish Law Commission’s advisory group on Moveable Transactions, which reported in 2018.
