Fox Williams LLP has advised New College of the Humanities Limited (“the Company”) on a subscription of up to £10 million of new equity from private investors in order to launch the New College of the Humanities.
The New College of the Humanities is a new independent university college due to open in Bloomsbury in autumn 2012. The institution is modelled on America’s elite liberal arts colleges and will provide Oxbridge quality education to its students.
Swiss private investors join a star-studded array of leading academics, City financiers and high net worth individuals including the founding shareholder and new Master of the College, AC Grayling; evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins; historians Niall Ferguson, Linda Colley and Sir David Cannadine; philosophers Simon Blackburn and Peter Singer; and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss. The 14 professors behind the project will all teach at the College.
The College will be managed by AC Grayling, and Jeremy Gibbs, CEO. Charles Watson, will be Chairman of the Company.
The Fox Williams team, led by Associate Tom Rowley and Partner Paul Taylor, advised on all the corporate aspects of the fundraising, as well as some of the higher education regulatory aspects, tax structuring, intellectual property and employment. They were assisted by Eniga de Montfort, Simon Bennett, Emma Bailey, Jaspal Pachu and David Murphy.
Jeremy Gibbs says:
“Paul Taylor has acted for me for more than 15 years and this is another job well done. He and Tom are responsive and innovative lawyers and we are happy to have reached the end of the beginning of this exciting new project with their help”.
Tom Rowley commented:
“We are delighted to have advised New College of the Humanities Ltd in this groundbreaking new venture in higher education. As a firm we are very active and experienced in advising on private equity investment transactions using similar structures, but this deal is a ‘first’ in many aspects, and it has been an extremely interesting project to work on. We wish the College all the very best for its launch later this year.”
