It’s exceptionally rare for a management team to see off a hostile takeover bid. But that didn’t deter Andrew Harrison from taking up the challenge of representing William Cook plc, Britain’s biggest maker of steel castings, in its battle with arch-rival Triplex Lloyd plc.

To defeat the takeover bid, chairman Andrew Cook launched a management buy-out of his company. It was a bold move – private equity funders and their advisers rarely want to spend money when there’s no guarantee their bid will succeed. He quickly found backing from Electra Fleming and chose Andrew Harrison to represent the management team.

The management’s bid won.

The Financial Times described it as the “deal of the decade”. It is only the second time in English legal history that a strategy of this kind has succeeded.