Christian F. McDermott

Christian’s representative experience includes advising:

Fintech and Payments

• Coinbase on acquiring Deribit, the world’s leading crypto options exchange with about US$30 billion of current open interest
• FIS on its US$24.2 billion sale of Worldpay with GTCR to Global Payments and concurrent US$13.5 billion acquisition of Global Payments’ Issuer Solutions business
• Payoneer, a global payments platform, on its strategic acquisition of Skuad, an employer-of-record and agent-of-record on behalf of enterprise customers in 160 countries
• A European financial services provider on its joint venture with a leading US telecoms company, including drafting and negotiating various associated business and outsourcing arrangements, as well as launching a co-branded credit card
• Goldman Sachs on developing Marcus Invest, its UK Retail Investment Platform
• Goldman Sachs Bank USA on its US$150 million receivables funding facility for Splitit Payments Limited, a global BNPL solutions provider
• Madison Dearborn Partners on acquiring all outstanding shares of MoneyGram, a global leader in money transfer services, valued at approximately US$1.8 billion
• Square on acquiring Verse Technologies, a Spain-based mobile payments application company
• The Rise Fund, an investing platform of TPG, on its US$200million investment in Airtel Mobile Commerce (Airtel Money), a Netherlands-based mobile money business and wholly owned Airtel Africa subsidiary
• Cipher Mining Technologies on a master services and supply agreement with Bitfury to enable Cipher to establish its bitcoin mining operations in the US
• A global online marketplace on contractual negotiations with a payment service provider in relation to rolling out a BNPL product in the Middle East
• Thomas Cook Group plc on the payments-related aspects of its attempted rescue, in particular renegotiating arrangements with its three largest payment service providers
• Interswitch on its strategic partnership with Visa, which made Interswitch one of the most valuable African fintech businesses with a valuation of US$1 billion
• A nation state on developing a new domestic and international payments system, including drafting the various underlying commercial contracts
• TransferWise on strategic structuring and developing template B2B terms and conditions
• A crypto-brokerage on the developing its standard client-facing terms and conditions
• Numerous merchants and merchant acquirers on payment processing terms, including applying the GDPR to such arrangements
• CVC and Blackstone in connection with the £2.96 billion acquisition by a consortium comprising Blackstone and CVC Capital of Paysafe Group a UK-based online payment solutions company
• The underwriters on the US$2.4 billion IPO of Nets — Scandinavia’s largest payments processor
• A major natural resources company on its global paying services contract with a global bank
• A leading Asian social network on the international product rollout of a new payments platform in various countries, including regulatory, compliance, and local partnership arrangements
• A major merchant services provider on its new standard form, large-market merchant services agreement

Videogames

• CVC on its investment in Dream Games as its sole equity partner
• Build A Rocket Boy, an international game developer and publisher, on acquiring PlayFusion
• CVC Capital Partners and the acquisition vehicle it formed with Haveli Investments on acquiring Jagex, a leading videogame developer and publisher, from Carlyle

Non-Fintech M&A

• A consortium of investors, led by Andrew Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises Global Football Group, on acquiring a majority stake in Rangers Football Club
• Muse Capital on its investment into the Red Bull Italy SailGP team, as part of a consortium of investors and sports industry leaders
• DoorDash on its proposed take-private of food delivery platform Deliveroo
• Anglo American on the US$3.775 billion sale of its Australian Steelmaking Coal Portfolio to Peabody Energy
• Jersey Telecom on selling its IoT division, including advising on transitional and long-term separation arrangements involving proprietary systems and underlying IP and source code issues
• A global household appliance company on the carve-out of its EMEA business
• EQT, CPP Investments, and Nord Anglia Education on the sale of Nord Anglia Education to a consortium formed by Neuberger Berman Private Markets, EQT, and CPP Investments, together with other global institutional investors, for an enterprise value of US$14.5 billion
• Cadence on its agreement to acquire Arm’s Artisan foundation IP business

Outsourcing

• A leading UK insurer on outsourcing its policy administration activities, as well as certain IT and business processes
• A global media company on negotiating framework services agreements with the client’s three main offshore service providers
• A global media company on negotiating licensing and support arrangements to implement and run tax compliance software and associated outsourced services across the client’s operating divisions
• A UK-headquartered exchange on renegotiating and insourcing its IT function
• A global retail and investment bank on the multibillion-euro global outsourcing of its investment banking IT infrastructure
• A global UK-headquartered retail and investment bank on the top-down renegotiation of its relationship with its biggest IT supplier, comprising individual hardware, software, and services streams
• A leading South African bank on outsourcing the bank’s applications maintenance arrangements
• A global UK-headquartered retail and investment bank on the global outsourcing of the bank’s facilities management functions
• A global retail bank on renegotiating a complex framework agreement covering of all of its voice and data telecommunications requirements