David Widger is Head of the Firm's Corporate Department. His key areas of expertise include mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, corporate governance, private equity, joint ventures, venture capital, corporate restructurings, capital markets and securities law.
David's practice involves advising a wide range of Irish and international public and private corporations, institutions and private equity funds on all legal aspects of their corporate affairs.
Some of his most significant transactions include acting for:
- Allied Irish Banks on its acquisition of the deposit books of IBRC;
- Citigroup on its sale of Citilife Financial Ltd to Enstar;
- Morgan Stanley in the issuance of shares to the National Pension Reserve Fund Commission and the related de-listing of Allied Irish Banks;
- Kennedy Wilson Europe on its acquisition of Bank of Ireland Real Estate Investment Management;
- Avestus on the sale of the Four Seasons hotel Dublin to London & Regional;
- Campari on its €128.2m acquisition of Carolans, Frangelico and Irish Mist from William Grant & Sons
- RHJ International on its acquisition of KBC Asset Management Ltd (Dublin) from KBC Asset Management;
- Hellman & Friedman on their acquisition of Web Reservations International (Awarded 2010 Private M&A deal of the year by Finance Dublin);
- UBS and Davy as joint bookrunners in €1.24bn rights issue by CRH (Awarded 2010 Equity Capital Markets deal of the year by Finance Dublin);
- Guanabara Holdings on its hostile takeover bid for EcoSecurities plc;
- The receiver (Deloitte) on the sale of Waterford Wedgewood to KPS Capital Partners;
- Pfizer on the acquisition by Hovione of Pfizer's API manufacturing facility in Cork;
- Wyeth on the acquisition by Elanco Animal Health of Wyeth's Sligo based animal health business;
- Irish Continental Group on takeover bids from Aella and the Moonduster consortium;
- FL Partners on its €244m acquisition of The Racing Post;
- Hibernian/Aviva on its €1.3bn bancassurance life and pensions merger with Ark Life;
- AIB on its €1.3bn financing of the acquisition of Jury's Doyle Hotel Group plc by JDH Acquisitions.
David sits on the Advisory Board of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.
David is consistently recognised by clients and peers in leading international publications for his knowledge of the law and expertise in dealing with complex issues. Clients comment: on his "practical and commercially minded approach, which allows him to be adaptable and flexible" (Chambers Global 2011); "He is an excellent lawyer….clients value Widger for his pragmatism...I think that David in particular is very good at cutting through the legal issues to the commercial elements...he gets a very good balance between ensuring the legalities are correct but also making sure you get a deal done" (IFLR1000 2012). He is also consistently recommended in Chambers Europe, Best Lawyers, PLC Which Lawyer and The Legal 500.