Mahesh Varia
Image of Mahesh Varia

Mahesh Varia

Partner

Mahesh specializes in employee equity incentives and executive remuneration.

He acts for companies (both publicly listed and private) on all aspects of employee equity incentives, including design, the tax and cost implications, shareholder communication, corporate governance and best practice. Mahesh has extensive corporate transactional experience and advises on share plan issues arising from IPOs, mergers and acquisitions.

He is a regular speaker at conferences and for over 10 years edited the employment income chapter of the leading textbook Revenue Law – Practice and Principles.

Experience

Representative matters

  • Quanex Building Products Corporation on the executive and employee incentives aspects of its £788m recommended cash and share offer for Tyman plc (previous firm experience).
  • Lok'nStore Group plc on the executive and employee incentives aspects of its £378m recommended cash takeover by Shurgard (previous firm experience).
  • Apax Global Impact Fund on the incentives aspects on its agreement to acquire a controlling stake in Integrated Environmental Solutions, a world leader in digital twin simulation software to decarbonise the built environment (previous firm experience).
  • Numis corporation plc on its takeover by Deutsche Bank AG (previous firm experience).
  • Ascential plc on the sale of its product design business, WGSN, to funds advised by Apax Partners LLP (previous firm experience).

Pro bono

  • Trustee of the social mobility charity Strive, which has transformed the training contract application journeys of 500 socially mobile candidates.

Recognition

Mahesh Varia is a thought leader. He strikes the proper balance between commercial needs of clients and subject matter expertise
Legal 500 (Employee Share Schemes), 2024
Mahesh is a thought leader and a client favourite
Chambers UK (Employee Share Schemes & Incentives), 2025

Awards

  • Hall of Fame, Legal 500, 2024
  • Band 1, Chambers UK, 2025
Disclaimer
A&O Shearman was formed on May 1, 2024 by the combination of Shearman & Sterling LLP and Allen & Overy LLP and their respective affiliates (the legacy firms). Any matters referred to above may include matters undertaken by one or more of the legacy firms rather than A&O Shearman.