Biography
Ion Nestor is Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (NNDKP), one of Romania's leading law firms and a seven-time recipient of the Chambers Europe Law Firm of the Year award for Romania. Over more than three decades in practice he has coordinated some of the most complex cross-border transactions in the country, as well as major legislative projects, with particular expertise in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, privatisation and banking.
He established the firm in February 1990, shortly after the Romanian revolution, together with Manuela Nestor, initially as a two-lawyer legal consultancy focused on the business sector. In 1995 the practice merged with Kingston & Petersen to become Nestor Nestor Kingston Petersen, and in 2001 it joined forces with Ana Diculescu-Sova to form the present-day NNDKP. Under his leadership the firm grew from two lawyers to a team of more than 120 and added a dedicated tax advisory practice in 2008.
Mr Nestor acted as lead counsel on the privatisation of the Romanian Commercial Bank, Romania's largest state-owned bank, a EUR 3.75 billion transaction completed in two stages and described as the country's largest commercial deal. He also advised on the EUR 675 million privatisation of the national telecommunications company, on the acquisition of shares in the state gas distribution company in a transaction exceeding EUR 310 million, and on the privatisation of four electricity distribution companies. Before 1989 he served as legal counsel to the Romanian consulting institute Romconsult and as legal researcher at the Institute of Legal Research of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest.
Ion Nestor graduated Magna cum Laude from the University of Bucharest Law School in 1976. In 2017 he received the Market Maker for Romania lifetime achievement award from CEE Legal Matters, presented to the senior lawyer identified by peers as having played the most influential role in creating the country's modern legal market. Ranked as a Senior Statesman in Corporate/M&A by Chambers and Partners, he is a member of the Bucharest Bar and the International Bar Association and a former chairperson of SEE Legal.