Pitch Best Young M&A Lawyer 2023: Maarten van Wijlen, Lexence

Name: Maarten van Wijlen
Company: Lexence
Job Description: Lawyer, M&A / PE
Age: 28

What are the specialties of this talent?
Maarten is a senior associate of our dedicated M&A and private equity team headed by Wouter Helder and Mathijs van Doormalen. Maarten specialises in (inter)national corporate and private equity transactions focused primarily on the mid-market, both sell-side and buy-side. Maarten has been the lead senior associate in many transactions this year, including recently for Zig Beheer, a portfolio company of Main Capital acquiring Cegeka Real Estate Solutions, Nibe Industrier acquiring Climate for Life (receiving a lot of media attention) and the merger between Horizon Air Freight and Swift Marine.

How does the talent distinguish itself from its peers?
Maarten stands out for combining excellent legal knowledge with analytical skills. In addition, he has a serious/mature but friendly attitude and is able to handle complex and bulky matters while staying relaxed and maintaining an overall view. He coordinates and cooperates easily with clients and various work streams and is liked by the clients, his colleagues, peers and M&A professionals. Building on these qualities and skills, he often takes the lead in notable transactions and is already building his own client base.

What impact does the talent have within the organization?
Maarten’s roots are in Brabant and his natural empathetic style goes extremely well with a strong and very structured approach. All colleagues – from support staff to partners – like working with Maarten and he is always willing and capable of supporting team members when and where needed. He creates an open and safe culture where everyone can speak up their mind and he is not afraid to do so himself. Maarten regularly helps with updating and improving know-how and the firm’s templates to meet the client’s changing requirements and today’s standards. Maarten is also coordinating the Lexence trainee programm whereby he manages to enthuse new talent for our M&A practice and to “Lexenize” young associates and teach them in-house on a variety of legal, financial and operational subjects and skills relevant to M&A and private equity.

What impact does the talent have outside the organization?
Maarten easily connects with people of all ages and descent and is able to develop and attract (new) clients. For a couple of years, he has – with other team members – organized tailor-made lectures for trusted CF advisors on M&A related subjects. Maarten is also active beyond just client work and participates in various (sports) events within the Bar and Young M&A Community.

To what extent does the talent makes the difference to clients?
Clients easily accept Maarten as their go-to trusted counsel due to his calm, persuasive hands-on mentality and his proactive approach. Maarten is recognized for his exceptional quality of work combined with a structured approach. He is able to understand the needs and desires (and sometimes emotions) of the parties involved. Due to his very focused M&A and PE practice he speaks the clients’ language. After having closed one transaction with Maarten, clients often directly return to Maarten for a new transaction. Clients enjoy working with him, like his (slightly sarcastic) humor, and fully trust him handling the transaction.

Why does the talent deserve this nomination?
Maarten is an exceptional talent, way ahead of all his peers. Despite his young age (28), Maarten is able to act at a level much senior to his age. He has matured in a short period of time and his understanding of not only legal matters is convincing and has proven decisive on numerous occasions in finding pragmatic and workable solutions. This nomination underpins Maarten’s role for young lawyers within Lexence, and is a token of our appreciation of Maarten’s hard work, combining a busy practice, with business development and following Grotius Academie Mergers and Acquisitions.