Ron Gibbs obituary: lawyer and yachting entrepreneur

Ron Gibbs, former head of asset finance at Linklaters, died on August 30. He was 68. Ron is remembered by his former team-mates and competitors as an extremely good technical lawyer, but perhaps most for his generosity and irrepressible sense of fun.

Gibbs was extremely successful as a lawyer but also a very talented businesses man. When he was at Linklaters he owned several pubs in Richmond and was co-owner of a chain of local estate agents.

 “As well as being huge fun he was also a bloody good lawyer”

After leaving Linklaters in 2006 he bought and then flipped the former Royal Navy shipyard in Gibraltar (which he had planned to make a superyacht refit yard). He was also involved in various other yachting-related businesses, including establishing Silver Arrows Marine, a motor yacht venture with Mercedes Benz, named after their racing team.

Gibbs was one of a small group of lawyers credited with creating the yachting law industry. “In the late 1980s yachting law really was a cottage industry and Ron was one of the lawyers on the early transactions,” says Jay Tooker, co-head of HFW’s yacht team in London. “ I remember acting for a yard with him representing an owner back in 1989. In those days you could count on one hand the number of big boats being delivered in a year.”

He was also a yacht owner. Gibbs had a succession of Sunseekers ranging from 15-35m and held various yachting qualifications.

Gibbs worked across all asset finance classes including shipping, aircraft and rail, playing a key advisory role in the UK rail privatisations. “As well as being huge fun he was also a bloody good lawyer with very sound commercial instincts,” says Robert Fugard, a partner at Hogan Lovells and a former partner of Gibbs at Linklaters.

Simon Gwynne, another former Linklaters colleague and partner at Addleshaw Goddard, adds: “Ron acted on many large and complex structured asset finance transactions and was impressively across both the volume and the minutiae, but he never lost sight of the impending timetable and need to get the deal across the line by it. He led his team by way of example (injecting the commitment and hours) but also with great generosity of spirit and humour.”  He will be missed.