Pál Szabó

As a partner and co-Head of Country of the Budapest office, I am heading the Corporate/M&A team.

I have significant experience in cross-border and domestic M&A, as well as in private equity and corporate matters and transactions.

With a practice covering all types of corporate and commercial transactions, I have acted for private and public vendors, private purchasers and private equity firms across a range of sectors including finance, energy, telecommunications and media, chemicals, life sciences, technology, and retail & consumer. I have also advised on competitive auction bidding processes, as well as on company reorganisation and restructuring.

In addition, I frequently advise our clients on employment matters including collective redundancies, benefits and incentive programmes, and share incentive schemes, as well as on transactions involving domestic and cross-border labour law, such as company reorganisations and outsourcing. I have also advised on matters relating to senior executives and their compensation packages.

Before joining Bird & Bird, I worked as part of the M&A, corporate and employment teams at other leading international law firms, and spent nine months working in the M&A and private equity groups in the London office of one of the international firms. I am fluent in English, as well as my native Hungarian.

• Advising on the sale of Budapest Bank to a company owned by the Hungarian State representing General Electric.
• Advising the MVM Group (the Hungarian Electricity Group) on various acquisitions (including a major gas utility provider).
• Advising Magyar Telekom (the subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG) on the sale of Origo, a leading news website.
• Advising on the sale of General Electric's lighting business to the management of GE Hungary, representing the seller, as well as on various other divestments.
• Advising OTP Bank on various acquisitions in the region (including in Serbia, Romania and Slovenia)