News & Events | News

Friday 8th December 2006

Leading private equity law firm SJ Berwin advised regular buy-out client Lion Capital LLP (“Lion Capital”) on the definitive agreement to acquire Contessa (Holdings) Limited (“Contessa”), a specialty retailer of women’s lingerie and nightwear from Theo Paphitis, a star of BBC's Dragons' Den and the entrepreneur behind Ryman stationery.  Headquartered in Crewe, Contessa operates 69 stores in the UK and in its most recent fiscal year generated £18 million of turnover.  The deal comes only months after Lion Capital’s acquisition of La Senza from Mr Paphitis, and further solidifies La Senza’s leading position in the UK lingerie market.SJ Berwin continues to be a leading adviser in the consumer, retail and leisure sectors.  Other transactions the firm has advised on include the acquisition for Rubicon Retail of Principles and Warehouse, the sale of Rubicon Retail to Mosaic Fashions Limited, the sale of Jane Norman for Graphite Capital, the acquisition of Republic for Change Capital, and the purchase of MFI Retail for Merchant Equity Partners. 

The SJ Berwin team advising Lion Capital was led by corporate partner Richard Lever, assisted by Corrine Campbell.

For further information please contact:

Richard Lever, Corporate Partner on +44 (0)20 7111 2347 or richard.lever@sjberwin.com

Aurelia Spivey, Business Development Manager on +44 (0)20 7111 2060 or aurelia.spivey@sjberwin.com

Founded in 1982, SJ Berwin is a leading City corporate and commercial law firm with more than 500 lawyers working across its offices in London, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris and Turin.

With more than 200 corporate finance lawyers, the depth and breadth of expertise of our pan-European Corporate Finance Department is considerable.  We offer the complete range of corporate finance services, which extends to all aspects of domestic and cross-border M&A and buy-outs, private equity, equity capital markets, financial services and tax. Our client base includes an impressive array of public and private companies, entrepreneurs, of private equity houses, investment banks and financial institutions.

Previous shopping centre transactions on which SJ Berwin LLP have advised include the £1,170 million acquisition of the Meadowhall Centre by British Land and the £480 million joint venture between British Land and Land Securities relating to certain shopping centres in Scotland.

The firm has won a number of recent awards including “Law Firm of the Year" 2006 at the EVCA/Real Deals European Private Equity Awards for the third consecutive year,” European Law Firm of the Year" (fund formation) by subscribers to PrivateEquityOnline and Private Equity International in 2005 and 2006, "Private Equity Law Firm of the Year" 2004 and 2005  at the European Venture Capital journal awards and  "LBO Firm of the Year" 2004 at the Finance and Law Awards in Paris. The Real Estate Team is Legal Business Real Estate Team of the Year 2005. It was also named "Real Estate Team of the Year" in the Lawyer Magazine Awards 2004, following its advice on the RBS/Canary Wharf transaction the highest-value property investment transaction in the UK in 2004.

SJ Berwin LLP was named ‘UK Firm of the Year’ at the 2005 Legal Week Awards on 30th November. The awards recognised SJ Berwin’s five years of international expansion and its involvement in a series of high quality deals.

On 1 June 2005 SJ Berwin became SJ Berwin LLP, a limited liability partnership.  www.sjberwin.com.  SJ Berwin LLP or an affiliated undertaking has an office in Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Munich and Paris.