Josh Smith

Josh is a legal consultant with 4 years of post-qualification work in both Finance and Corporate teams. Josh has advised startups, SMES and even FTSE 100 entities based in the UK and internationally. Prior to being engaged by Ignition, Josh trained at Travers Smith (qualifying into the Banking team) after which he moved in-house into the Investments team at Schroders London HQ. More recently, Josh has worked as a legal consultant on a large legal project within a major investment bank and separately created the template documentation for a platform’s contract library aimed at startups, founders, advisors and investors. Josh has also worked for legal contract outsourcing platforms and other alternative legal service providers, primarily focussed on commercial contracts.

Josh has worked within a range of sectors and has a particular interest in plant-based products. He is also a School Governor, a startup mentor and an advisor at legal advice clinics (for which he has delivered 2 training sessions on for junior and aspiring lawyers).

Relevant experience includes:

• Key legal contact for a bank’s IBOR transition project, handling loan linked derivative queries and management of external counsel and internal stakeholders.
• Creating legal templates for early stage companies and reviewing subscription agreements.
• Financial DD for M&A transactions;
• Negotiating security documentation, managing condition precedent processes, adherences and general financial due diligence.
• Creating and releasing security in multi-jurisdictional transactions.
• Negotiating of ISDAs, GMRAs, EFETs, GMSLAs and other derivative and.or structured product documentation including credit support annexes, confirmations, side letters and ancillary documentation.
• Reviewing APAC IPO letters.
• Negotiating and/or drafting (as applicable) joint venture agreements, SPAs and DD reports.
• Reviewing and negotiating Engagement letters, NDAs, Non-Reliance Letters as part of the early stage advisor engagement process for M&A transactions.