Fran S. Gray

FRAN GRAY advises on private equity transactions and private corporate M&A transactions across a range of sectors, including retail, real estate, industrials, energy, and infrastructure.

Fran completed a secondment to a U.S. private equity fund, where she focused on European private equity transactions.

Fran’s representative experience includes advising:

• Apollo-funds as lead investor of an investor group acquiring a 37% minority stake in Syntegon, a leading global technology company.
• 885 Capital on it's investment in The Baller League through a convertible debt instrument.
• Funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc. in the acquisition of a majority stake in Prosol Group, a multi-specialist in fresh food businesses and food retail in France.
• Clara Vista Partners and Portman Holdings LLC in its majority investment in UK-based Ipswich Town Football Club.
• Ryan Specialty in its US$525 million acquisition of Velocity Risk.
• Eldridge Industries, a leading investment firm and partner in Fulwell 73, in its merger with The SpringHill Company.
• Ryan Specialty in its acquisition of Innovisk.
• Kuvare Holdings in the sale for up to US$1 billion of Kuvare Asset Management to Blue Owl Capital (including potential earnout), and US$250 million preferred equity investment by Blue Owl in Kuvare.
• Gradiant, a Boston-headquartered water company, on a number of acquisitions in the Middle East.
• A U.S. private equity sponsor on its €3.17 billion carve-out acquisition of a global construction chemicals business from a German public company.
• A U.S. private equity sponsor and its portfolio company on the bolt-on acquisition of a leading clay roof tile business in Portugal.
• A U.S. private equity sponsor on the acquisition of a portfolio of non-performing loans in Europe.
• A UK private equity fund on its investment in SEM Energy, a provider of zero-waste and waste-to-product industrial and energy applications headquartered in the UK.
• A U.S. private equity fund in the formation of a new independent power producer, Onyx Strategic Investment Management I BV, and the acquisition of a fleet of coal- and biomass-fired power stations.
• A UK private equity fund on its investment in Well-SENSE Technology Limited, a services business using fiber optics technology to capture distributed temperature and acoustic measurements data.
• A U.S. private equity sponsor on its 100% equity sale valued at approximately US$151.3 million of certain oil and gas royalty assets to a U.S. based company.
• A U.S. private equity sponsor on the acquisition of a plywood manufacturing business in Spain.

Some of the above matters were handled prior to joining Sidley.