MMS appoints financial services director

Maclay Murray & Spens has added to its financial services strength with the appointment of Carolyn Bell as director of its financial services group in Edinburgh.

A member of the Law Society of England & Wales, Ms Bell is former in-house managing legal counsel with Lloyds Banking Group and Aberdeen Asset Management, whose experience also includes 10 years in London working in mergers and acquisitions with city law firm Hammonds. She moved to Scotland in 2008.

She joins the Edinburgh-headquartered law practice's financial services group, comprising over 20 lawyers, including six partners, operating across its UK-wide practice.

Her main areas of practice are collective investment schemes, pooled investments and financial services regulatory work. She handles onshore schemes, including authorised and unauthorised unit trusts and limited partnerships and offshore schemes, such as trusts, open-ended companies and closed-ended funds. She has further broad experience of operational matters and outsourcing arrangements in the asset management industry. She is also a non-executive director of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Guy Norfolk, partner and head of MMS’s financial services group, commented: “Carolyn is a highly regarded investment funds lawyer and her appointment is in line with our strategy to further strengthen our financial services offering, at a time when we are advising on a number of major transactions in the asset management space. Her significant and broad experience covering the UK and overseas asset management sectors, coupled with her specialist expertise across insurance, pensions, private equity and wealth, will be a valuable addition to the our corporate division as a whole.”