About us

Our team

RiverFleet is a business consultancy defined by its depth of knowledge and wealth of experience across each of the core skillsets encompassing Legal Finance.

Founded by individuals whose careers include over 7 years as Global Joint Head of Litigation at HSBC, and over 12 years as a Finance partner at three major law firms, our strategic partner in Slingshot Capital completes the rubrique with over 8 years active Investment Management expertise in the Legal Finance market and founder of one of the world’s first global commercial litigation finance fund-of-funds.

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Stuart Hills

Finance and Structuring

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Guy Nielson

Litigation

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Edward Truant

Strategic Partner 
Investment Management

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Navigating the Legal Finance Market

Successfully navigating the complexities and idiosyncratic characteristics of the global Legal Finance market requires the trust and confidence of specialist Legal Finance expertise dedicated to meeting clients’ specific requirements which are unique. To discover how we can help you achieve your goals, please get in touch with us.

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Stuart Hills

Finance and Structuring

Stuart is co-founder of Riverfleet and a finance lawyer with over 25 years’ experience in legal private practice.

Prior to becoming a lawyer he spent 5 years as a banker with Standard Chartered Bank, working on various UK financing transactions.

He was a partner for over 12 years for three major law firms, specialising in private and public acquisition finance, project finance and restructurings. Stuart’s wealth of experience offers clients unique perspectives on the financing and structuring of a broad range of legal finance solutions, whether involving:

Direct investment in litigation
Co-investment and participation in investment with a funder
Funding of law firms or claims handlers
Investment in a litigation fund or managed account
Monetisation of legal assets, converting potential future settlements and legal fees into immediate cash flow and revenue streams
Syndication and cross-collaterisation

His particular strengths lie in the ability to devise optimal legal finance solutions, and leveraging his professional networks to manage and execute transactions in the most efficient and cost effective way.

Stuart is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and has an LLB Honours Law degree from Durham University.

Guy Nielson

Litigation

Guy is co-founder of Riverfleet and a litigation lawyer with over 25 years’ experience of private practice and in-house counsel litigation and contentious regulatory experience.

He has over 7 years’ experience in private practice as an associate at Freshfields in their London and Hong Kong offices.

He has 18 years’ in-house legal counsel experience, including:

7 years at Merrill Lynch as Director of the Litigation and contentious Regulatory Affairs Group for Global Markets and Investment Banking for EMEA, and Head of Litigation for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers;
11 years at HSBC Holdings. For over 7 years, he was Global Joint Head of Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement with responsibility for managing the Group’s global exposure to material litigation, regulatory enforcement, and investigations, across the UK, Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

Guy’s primary responsibility was to assess the merits of cases and manage them to the best possible outcome. He has expert perspectives and industry insight on the key legal issues, risk factors, and commercial considerations, for claimants and respondents alike, that are most likely to be determinative of a successful outcome, whether by way of a court judgment or a settlement.

He is adept at managing external counsel efficiently and cost effectively, evaluating the robustness of legal and expert opinions, factual evidentiary support, budgeting forecasts, reasonable damages or settlement amounts, case strategy, likely duration to trial and enforcement related issues.

He has direct experience of handling cases financed by litigation funders, including class action claims by institutional shareholders alleging false and misleading statements in Annual Report and Accounts, and claims by investors alleging the misrepresentation of tax avoidance schemes.

He also has a thorough understanding of the legal and regulatory framework for litigation funding and the jurisdiction risk posed by different approaches to fundamental legal, regulatory and ethical issues.

He has a BA Honours Degree in German and French from King’s College, University of London.

Edward Truant

Strategic Partner 
Investment Management

Riverfleet has a strategic partner in Slingshot Capital (www.slingshotcap.com), an investment management company specialising in the legal finance market. Based in Toronto, Ed is the founder and CEO of Slingshot Capital. An accountant by background, Ed has a wealth of experience in private equity investing, fund management and legal finance.

Ed has more than 20 years’ experience in mid-market private equity investing and M&A advisory services to private corporations. He has served both as CFO and interim CEO for portfolio companies of Imperial Capital Group, where he was also a partner.

For over 8 years, Ed has been an active investor in the litigation finance sector, and a leading proponent for litigation finance. He was one of the first to fully embrace the attractiveness of the sector. Recognising its non-correlated characteristics, the inherent value of portfolio theory when investing in the sector, the relative inefficiency of the sector, and the long-term potential growth of the industry, Ed founded Balmoral Wood, one of the world’s first global commercial litigation finance fund-of-funds.

Ed is experienced in manager identification, fundraising, fund documentation, relationship management, fund diligence, fund marketing, thought leadership, investment monitoring, and portfolio and risk management.

Given the knowledge he has gained through discussions with multiple managers in various jurisdictions operating in a variety of sub-sectors, Ed has a unique perspective on the global industry, its fund managers, and the intricacies of investing in the asset class.

Ed maintains and continues to develop relationships with a wide variety of global commercial litigation finance fund managers in Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In addition to having been a general partner of a commercial litigation finance fund-of-funds, Ed is an advisory board member of Sage Capital Partners, which manages a private equity search fund investing strategy.

Ed earned a Bachelor of Commerce & Economics from the University of Toronto and is both a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Business Valuator (CBV).