Shoosmiths builds out financial services and tech M&A offering with new leading London Corporate partner

Shoosmiths today announces the appointment of noted M&A and Corporate Finance lawyer Kurt Ma as a partner in London.

He joins the Corporate team, where he will develop the firm’s premium, cross-border M&A offering, particularly in financial services and technology.

Kurt joins from BCLP, where he managed an international practice advising corporates, funds and financial institutions on M&A, PE, joint ventures, and investments. Before BCLP, Kurt trained and worked at Slaughter and May for 10 years, including secondments to New York and Beijing.

Kurt brings high-quality transactional and advisory capability and a stellar reputation for financial services and technology transactions, having been named “Gaming Guru” by Law360 in 2024 and regularly sought out for academic and media engagements.

Head of Shoosmiths’ Corporate practice Ben Turner said: “Corporate is a key pillar of Shoosmiths’ growth ambitions. Kurt’s practice directly complements the firm’s 2030 strategy to be the leading law firm for premium mid-market M&A, known for our best-in-class transactional and general advisory services business. Kurt’s recruitment allows us to really accelerate this M&A offering.”

On his appointment, Kurt said: “There is so much momentum, optimism and ambition here. Shoosmiths is clearly in growth mode and corporate, in particular, is key to that growth. It is incredibly exciting to be part of this journey.”

The London Corporate team now sits at 14 partners, with M&A one of the most consistently profitable and generative areas of the firm. Corporate generated £22.5m in fee income in the first 7 months of the 2024/25 financial year with the M&A group contributing £10.2m of that income. Shoosmiths’s Corporate team ranks #1 on Experian’s most recent MarketIQ M&A Review for volume of deals completed by any UK law firm.