"Depth on knowledge and experience across all the team you deal with. "
Legal 500, 2025
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Contact Steve Clinning
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Expertise
Steve Clinning is a Partner in the Banking and Finance team with specialist experience having spent 12 years in the finance industry before deciding to retrain as a solicitor. Steve qualified in 2002 and has acted on matters across a mix of borrower and lender work.
He advises both borrowers and lenders on a range of transactions including general property finance, corporate acquisition work, hotel finance, trading business finance, development finance and asset finance, and has established long-term partnerships with several high-volume lending clients.
Steve’s experience gained from his positions working for lenders gives him a unique insight into how they approach questions of risk and security. Steve believes it brings an extra dimension into his advice on transactions to both lenders and borrowers and manages transactions from instruction through to completion in a smooth and efficient manner.
Steve aims to understand and anticipate his clients’ requirements and to develop longstanding relationships with all of them. He always adopts a commercial and pragmatic approach giving sensible advice on often complex transactions.
In detail
Recent experience
Steve’s specific career highlights recently include the following:
- A non-confidential matter acting for Octopus in a facility of £60m to finance the acquisition of a potential gigafactory site in Somerset called “This is Gravity”, particularly exciting as the site has recently been acquired by Jaguar Land Rover/Tata and was on the BBC News;
- Confidential matter acting for a lender in a £100m plus facility to finance a series of static caravan sites in the West Country and including the funding of an amusement park in Cornwall;
- Confidential matter acting for a borrower in the funding of two hotels in Liverpool and Manchester being funded by HSBC and by Lloyds, total debt involved was circa £170m;
- Confidential matter acting for a lender on a £26m funding of a large development site in Liverpool, the land in question was split into two parts with the first being used for the construction of a student hall of residence and the second for a boutique hotel; and
- Confidential matter acting for a lender in the funding of a site with planning in Swindon involving an advance of £66m, this was the biggest transaction in respect of single asset security for the lender in question.
Career history
2023 – Present: Partner, Memery Crystal
2000 – 2023: Head of Banking & Real Estate Finance, Howard Kennedy
1992 – 2000: Securities Manager, KBC Bank NV