Pitch Best Young M&A Lawyer 2023: Jeroen Streefkerk, Allen & Overy

Name: Jeroen Streefkerk
Company: Allen & Overy
Job Description: Senior Associate
Age: 31

What are the specialties of this talent?

Jeroen specializes in private M&A transactions for both corporate and private equity clients. He has advised on a wide range of sell-side auctions, carve-out transactions, and (add-on) acquisitions. In Q4 2022, he was seconded to ING’s legal team.

His relevant experience includes advising:
• DSM on the EUR1.6bn sale of its Resins & Functional Materials businesses to Covestro.
• Divestment of the DSM Advanced Solar backsheet business to Worthen Industries.
• Waterland and the shareholders of the Sentia Group, a cloud consulting company, on the disposal of the Sentia Group to Accenture.
• Parcom on the EUR115m sale of Frames, a Netherlands-based developer of sustainable energy and water engineering solutions, to Plug Power.
• Parcom Capital and Royal Euroma, a major Dutch producer of herbs and spices, on the acquisition of Intertaste, and subsequently on the partial sale of Royal Euroma to Marubeni Corporation.
• Royal Agio Cigars, one of the leading cigar manufacturers in Europe, on the EUR210m sale of Royal Agio Cigars to Scandinavian Tobacco Group.
• Dover Corporation on the acquisition of LIQAL, a turnkey supplier of liquefied natural gas and hydrogen refueling equipment and solutions.
• Wessanen, the European leader in healthy, organic, and sustainable food, on its EUR885m public takeover offer by a consortium consisting of PAI Partners and Charles Jobson.
• The founders on the sale of AFPRO Filters, a leading innovator of high-end, energy-efficient air filters, to Filtration Group and Madison Industries.

How does this talent distinguish itself from its peers?

Jeroen is a rising star within our corporate team and has worked on an impressive number of transactions, taking a lead role well beyond his actual years of experience. He distinguishes himself by combining excellent legal skills with a ‘can-do’ attitude, and clients praise Jeroen for this pragmatic approach. This makes Jeroen very efficient and very pleasant to work with. He also excels in deal management and ensures that clients feel that he is fully in control. Jeroen is highly organized, and his control of a matter leaves the client completely confident that their interests are being looked after.

What impact does the talent have within the organization?

Jeroen plays an important role within our organization in various areas. Most notably, Jeroen has been actively involved in the training of junior associates, by taking up the role of a “coach” for specific juniors within the team. In his view, scheduling regular coaching sessions with them, not only focusing on day-to-day struggles but also on long-term growth, really helps junior associates get a wider and better perspective on their career within A&O and beyond. He has also been actively involved in the recruitment process for student interns, having conducted interviews with student interns for many years and being actively involved in A&O’s own assessment tool for interns and junior associates.

Next to his involvement in the recruitment process, Jeroen encourages social activities within the firm, regularly organizing team events and encouraging a “pre-corona-like” commitment to “gezelligheid” by the juniors, while at the same time showing them how to combine the social activities with the demands of the job.
Jeroen is the linking pin in the team between the different levels of experience (from partner to junior associate), translating concerns among the juniors to the partners or vice versa, but also between the various teams within the network.

A concrete example thereof is his enthusiasm and effort to create “mixed deal-teams” which A&O is increasingly focusing on. These mixed teams comprise lawyers from different A&O offices, often spanning several time zones (whereas normally deal teams are located in one office). This works really well from a workflow management perspective, but also results in more diverse teams that combine different perspectives and score really high in terms of cultural awareness. This drives efficiency and results in effective communication and has proved to be very valuable. Over the past year, Jeroen has demonstrated that this new type of working, especially with teams in Europe, can truly work and add value both for the teams internally but also for clients.

What impact does the talent have outside the organization?

Jeroen is a true team builder, connecting all the relevant people within and outside A&O. He has a wide range of experience advising on and coordinating complex cross-border M&A transactions, but can also go “back to basics” when assisting founders in the sale of their business, often their life’s work.
Strong personal relationships and understanding the needs of clients and other stakeholders are also what made Jeroen’s secondment at ING so valuable. Being part of another organization and coordinating large matters between various departments within ING provides you with a new insight and makes you understand better what clients are actually looking for when asking their lawyers for advice.

To what extent does the talent make a difference to clients?

Jeroen is solution-oriented and has a pragmatic approach, which is something that is appreciated by clients. Next to that, he excels in deal management, and thereby clients trust Jeroen to get the deal done.
Jeroen had the privilege to work with a new important client earlier this year. He fully embraced the opportunity, and the client was very impressed with how Jeroen managed the transaction and legal documents. The client explicitly reached out to us to share how much they enjoyed working with Jeroen (which is often not common).

Why does the talent deserve this nomination?

Jeroen is an extremely capable M&A lawyer, who stands out for his substantive knowledge, his impressive track record, his pragmatic approach, and his ability to establish strong relationships with his colleagues and clients.