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Monday 10th July 2006

Corporate and commercial law firm SJ Berwin LLP's Paris real estate team has advised British investment company Matrix on its Euro 86 million acquisition and financing of the future headquarters of the Casino Group in Saint-Etienne, France.  The building, which is around 40,000 m2 (400,000 sq ft) of offices is being built by Meunier with completion scheduled for May 2007.  It has been pre-let to Casino on a 10 year lease, without any breaks.  Bank of Scotland, Paris arranged the financing.

The SJ Berwin team was led by partner Ann Ly Ky, assisted by Herve Pillard.  The vendor was advised by Herve Kensicher and Amaury de Feydeau of  Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Bryan Pickup, Head of Real estate at SJ Berwin said, "This is a great deal and an example of how we can help our UK clients as they expand into Europe.  The building represents one of the most important office developments in France outside Paris."

Matrix has been building up an property  portfolio over the last eighteen months and now has 165 assets valued at around Euros £3.2 billion (March 2006).

• On 1 June 2005 SJ Berwin LLP, an English limited liability partnership, took over the business of the SJ Berwin general partnership.  SJ Berwin LLP or an affiliated undertaking has an office in Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Milan, Munich and Paris.
• SJ Berwin LLP was named ‘UK Firm of the Year’ at the 2005 Legal Week Awards .  The award recognised SJ Berwin’s five years of international expansion and its involvement in a series of high quality deals.
• SJ Berwin's Real Estate Division totals 118 staff of which 21 are partners in London and 50 associates, encompassing the disciplines of Commercial Real Estate, Construction, Planning & Environment, Property Litigation and Real Estate Funds.  In addition, there are 3 dedicated real estate tax partners and 1 dedicated real estate partner in Paris.  There is an increasing emphasis on cross firm activity with related areas of Banking and Corporate and with the international offices.  The division acts for blue chip clients including British Land, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Hilton Group, Brixton plc, AXA, The Crown Estate, Marks & Spencer and Gazeley.
• 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.
• Revenue from Real Estate represents approximately 21% of the firm's total revenue in London.