Ivan Sagál

I am a Managing Partner of Bird & Bird offices in the Czech Republic and Slovakia where I coordinate teams of lawyers to deliver excellent professional advice and outstanding client service. I'm also the head of our Czech and Slovak Corporate and Banking & Finance Groups.

I represent domestic and international clients from a range of sectors including financial services, real estate and construction, renewable energy, oil and gas, IT, telecoms and media, automotive, life sciences, aviation and FMCG as well as government and public sector bodies.

I offer significant expertise in corporate matters including mergers, reorganizations, liquidations, acquisitions, disposals and takeover bids. In real estate, I have experience in purchase and sale agreements, leases, landlord/tenant issues and property development matters. In banking and finance, my expertise includes acquisition and project finance, capital markets, insurance and regulatory matters including payments and more generally FinTech-related issues. I have also been coordinating legal advice in a number of cross-border outsourcing and restructuring projects involving human capital, and also regularly advise in complex employment matters.

As well as contributing to legal publications, I'm often quoted in legal commentaries and the business media. I have also taken part in the Association for Corporate Growth, the Czech Private Equity & Venture Capital Association and the Association for Capital Markets.

Before joining Bird & Bird, I spent over a decade at one of Prague's largest law firms, where I was a partner responsible for M&A and banking and finance. I'm a member of the Czech Bar Association and the Slovak Bar Association.

As well as my native Slovak, I speak fluent English and Czech.

• Advising shareholders of Lighthouse Group on their divestment from one of the largest multifunctional (retail and office) real estate projects in Prague, Galerie Harfa
• Advising UK luxury hotels and holidays discount retailer Secret Escapes on their acquisition of a prominent Czech online discount retailer Slevomat, including related acquisition financing
• Advising shareholders of ISCARE - a leading Czech IVF clinic - on the sale of shares to a prominent Czech private equity fund Hartenberg Capital
• Advising a multinational enterprise information technology company on the Slovak part of their global spin off and merger of their IT services business with the Computer Sciences Corporation
• Advising Silicon Valley Bank on their acquisition financing of CentralNic Group plc's purchase of the business and assets of SK-NIC, the manager of Slovakia's top-level domain (.sk)