Cross border Mergers & Acquisitions

Travers Smith LLP is advising the senior management team of Cushon, a workplace savings and pensions fintech business, on the sale by NatWest Group of its 85% majority stake to WTW, a global advisory and brokerage company. The agreement forms part of a wider transaction, which sees WTW acquire 100% of Cushon.

The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission concluded negotiations late on 8 December on the Sustainability Omnibus, the highly politicised proposal to amend the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Though the agreed text is not available at the time of writing, the Council and the Parliament issued press releases with key details.

On 4 December 2025, the European Commission published three legislative texts, known collectively as the "Market Integration Package" (MIP). The MIP legislation forms part of the EU's wider Savings and Investments Union initiative, which in turn is a product of the EU's current drive to improve competitiveness and encourage growth.

The government yesterday, 4 December 2025, published an updated draft of the legislation implementing the UK's new carried interest tax regime coming into force from 6 April next year. The key principles of the regime have not been changed – broadly, all carried interest will be taxed as trading income (with a bespoke effective rate of around 34.1% being available for so-called "qualifying carried interest") - but there have been some helpful amendments to the mechanics. 

It's been a long time since a UK Budget and especially its behind-the-scenes mechanics (leaks, briefings and uploads) caused such a row. Looking behind those headlines, there was lots in the Budget of potential value to venture capital, but with a tax raising sting in the tail which we'll come to at the end. 

Travers Smith LLP has advised the senior management team of Heywood, a leading provider of pension technology solutions, on the investment into Heywood by Keylane, a leading European provider of pension and insurance technology. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

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Travers Smith has advised long-standing client Marshall Group on the sale of Marshall Land Systems Limited to Flowing River Capital, an indigenous-owned and led investment firm based in Saskatchewan, Canada.