Kirkland & Ellis and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have scored leading roles in Hargreaves Lansdown's £5.4bn sale to a consortium of private equity investors.  

Other law firms acting on the deal, the second largest by value struck this year by a London-listed company, include Latham & Watkins, Linklaters, White & Case, Macfarlanes and Ashurst.    

The consortium acquiring the investment platform is made up of CVC Capital Partners, Europe's largest private equity firm, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund Platinum Ivy and Swedish private equity firm Nordic Capital. 

The consortium, which had offered Hargreaves Lansdown 985 pence per share in May but was rejected, said its cash offer of £11.40 per share was final. 

Freshfields is advising Hargreaves Lansdown on the deal, with team led by corporate partners Claire Wills and Stephen Hewes. 

Kirkland is acting for Harp Bidco, a bidco to be financed by the consortium, and Nordic Capital. The team is led by corporate partners Keir MacLennan, Dipak Bhundia, David Higgins, Chris Connolly and Victoria Legg. 

Latham & Watkins is advising CVC, with the team headed by corporate partners Doug Abernethy, Suneel Basson-Bhatoa and Kem Ihenacho, while Linklaters is representing Platinum Ivy. The core M&A team is headed by partners Nicholas Edwards and Chris Boycott, who are based in Abu Dhabi and London respectively. 

Meantime White & Case is acting for club of private credit funds on a senior secured financing package to support the offer by the consortium, with the team led by London partner Gareth Eagles, the firm’s head of private credit and direct lending.  

The deal has the backing of Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown, who founded the company in 1981 and listed it in London in 2007. 

A Macfarlanes team headed by corporate and M&A partner Harry Coghill is acting for Hargreaves, who intends to re-invest half of his almost 20% stake in the private company and bank the roughly £530m left over, Reuters reported. Lansdown, who holds a 6% stake, stands to make around £309m from the sale. 

Hargreaves Lansdown is the UK’s largest savings and investment platform and the UK’s biggest retail stockbroker, managing in excess of £120bn of investments for more than 1.7 million clients. However its growth has lagged some competitors, with its ex-research director, Mark Dampier, telling Financial News in February the company's "lack of investment in technology, people and clients" had enabled rivals like AJ Bell and Fidelity to "catch-up". 

The consortium said in a statement that Hargreaves Lansdown needed substantial investment in an "extensive technology-led transformation" to drive the next phase of its growth and development. 

Hargreaves Lansdown's board has recommended the takeover to the company's shareholders, who will have the final say on the deal when they vote in a few weeks time.

Investors are being offered an alternative to the cash offer, with the option to transfer their shares into a stake in the private company. However, this could exclude existing shareholders who are unable to hold shares in an unlisted company. 

An Ashurst team headed by corporate partner Tom Mercer and banking partner Tim Rennie is representing Goldman Sachs, which is acting as financial adviser to Bidco and the consortium on the deal. Hargreaves Lansdown is being advised by Fenchurch Advisory Partners, Barclays Bank and Numis Securities, while Morgan Stanley is acting as financial adviser to Hargreaves Lansdown's independent board. 

The deal is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2025.