Team, Senior Legal Consultant
Yvo van Bijsterveld
Yvo van Bijsterveld is associated with the firm as a Senior Legal Consultant. He has more than twenty years of experience advising corporate clients, private equity firms, investors and business owners on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, commercial contracts and corporate governance.
Yvo began his career at Ploum Lodder Princen in 2003, focusing on corporate law, mergers and acquisitions and insolvency. In 2007, he joined Houthoff Buruma, where he advised on complex corporate transactions, including cross-border acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, restructurings and acquisition financings. His work spanned the energy, real estate, infrastructure and natural resources sectors and included coordinating multidisciplinary teams.
Following his time at Houthoff, Yvo worked on an independent basis, undertaking senior interim assignments at leading international law firms, including Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Simmons & Simmons, and acting as interim in-house corporate counsel at BlackRock and an international energy infrastructure group. These engagements encompassed M&A transactions, private equity investments, commercial contracts and fund governance.
Yvo has particular experience in the energy sector. Having worked both as external counsel and within in-house legal teams, he understands how transactions are managed from both perspectives. In his current role as Senior Legal Consultant, he combines the rigorous approach developed at leading law firms with practical insight into clients' commercial and operational priorities. His advice is clear and commercially grounded, and he drafts transaction documents and contracts with the people responsible for implementing and operating them in mind.
Experience
Selected transactions.
Before joining the firm, Yvo was involved in matters including advising:
- 01An energy infrastructure group on a range of matters, including the acquisition of a tank storage company, the acquisition of a company holding grid access rights and developing a battery storage system, and large-scale development projects for ammonia storage tanks and hydrogen crackers.
- 02An international energy company on the restructuring of its Dutch gas operations, including the separation of its onshore storage and offshore transport businesses and the subsequent sale of the offshore transport business to a private equity investor.
- 03An international oil company on the partial sale of its African oil operations and the formation of a related joint venture.
- 04A global investment firm on its investment in a company active in sustainable aviation fuel.
- 05A bank on its acquisition of a mortgage loan portfolio.
- 06An infrastructure investor on the acquisition of a majority stake in a group active in waste recycling infrastructure.
- 07A US group on the restructuring of its Dutch business, replacing staggered limited partnership structures.
- 08A consortium on its bid in an auction process for an inland terminal group operating in the Netherlands and Belgium.
- 09Shareholders on the sale of a company in the business of prefab dormer windows and timber frame construction and the supply of prefab building products.
- 10The shareholders of a group on the carve-out and sale of a provider of high-quality adhesive solutions in the high-tech industry to an investment firm.
- 11A private equity investor on the sale of a group active in the wine and coffee sectors.
- 12An international life sciences group on the acquisition, through a controlled auction, of a designer and supplier of flowmeters, primarily serving the single-use bioprocessing market.
- 13A biomedical company on its investment in a medical device start-up.
- 14An investment firm on its investment in a group specialising in process technology for powders and granules.
- 15The owner of a factory outlet centre on its sale to a real estate investment firm.
- 16Major real estate developers on a range of disposals and joint ventures.
Practice
What Yvo advises on.
- 01Domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions
- 02Commercial contracts and transaction support
- 03General corporate law and corporate governance
- 04Corporate restructuring
- 05Finance work from the borrower's perspective
Experience
Sectors and settings.
Yvo has worked in the energy, real estate, infrastructure and natural resources sectors and for asset managers and funds, both at law firms and within in-house legal teams.
Education
Academic background.
Yvo took his Master of Laws at Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2001. He subsequently completed the Grotius Academy postgraduate programmes in corporate and business law and in finance and security rights at Radboud University Nijmegen, and the extended postgraduate programme in mergers and acquisitions at VU Amsterdam.
Languages
Dutch and English.
Yvo is a native Dutch speaker with full professional proficiency in English, and he works in both languages as a matter of course.