News | EU & Competition

Wednesday 6th September 2006

Leading corporate and commercial firm SJ Berwin LLP advised the Universal Music Group on the €1.63 billion purchase of the BMG Music publishing business. After submitting the bid on 31st August, the deal team stepped up the tempo culminating in an exchange on the 6th of September - just 6 days after Universal won the hotly contested auction.

BMG Music publishing is the third largest music publisher in the world. BMG’s roster of writers includes Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Maroon5, Keane and Justin Timberlake.

SJ Berwin has a leading reputation in the music industry, having acted for some of the leading players including UK industry trade associations the BPI, PPL and IFPI.  Stephen Kon, our anti-trust maestro’s long standing relationship with the Universal Music Group orchestrated SJ Berwin’s appointment as advisers on the bid.

The international auction process combined the expertise of our pan - European corporate, competition, media and tax law departments - the team was led by Rob Day, Steven Davis and William Holder (Corporate), Stephen Kon and Tom Usher (Competition) working alongside Robb Klein and Nigel Palmer (Media) and John Skoulding (Tax) assisted by Nadim Zaman, Carly Clarke and Marc Sosnow (Corporate) Matt Evans (Competition), Sam Coleman (Tax) and Patrick Casey (Commercial) and with our European offices assisting on the global due diligence exercise.

Commenting on the deal Richard Constant, General Counsel, Universal Music Group International said: "SJ Berwin’s team led by Rob Day and Stephen Kon did a magnificent job on a transaction that both had to be completed in an extremely tight timeframe and had significant complications. They geared up overnight with the right number of people with the right skills, drove the transaction to a successful conclusion and have been a pleasure to work with."

The Universal Music transaction continues a busy summer period for media M&A activity, following closely on from the recent £320 million acquisition of ALL3MEDIA by Permira, where Rob Day and media partner Sarah Bing acted for the ALL3MEDIA management team.

Founded in 1982, SJ Berwin is a leading City corporate and commercial law firm with more than 550 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.

The EU & Competition department of SJ Berwin advises on mergers and JVs; state aid, cartel and monopoly enquiries; national and EC complaints and litigation; notifications to competition authorities; regulatory work; IP and competition interface issues; advisory and compliance work; trade and customs; lobbying and arbitrage. The team was named "Competition Team of the Year" at The Legal Business Awards 2006.

SJ Berwin's Media & Communications Group has extensive experience in almost every area of the media and communications industry, including; film and television production, film finance, broadcasting and communications, digital media, merchandising and publishing, computer games, E-Commerce and M-Commerce and Music. Established in 1988, the Group is one of the City's leading practices and stands at the forefront of international media law with client quotes recorded in Chambers and Partners 2005 describing them as "magnificent" with "big city expertise and an entrepreneurial spirit that just makes deals happen" 

SJ Berwin was created and thrives as a leading-edge legal services business, focusing on the European and international market place. Our clients are sophisticated buyers of legal services, principally entrepreneurial companies and financial institutions, whom we advise on a comprehensive range of services including Corporate Finance, Commercial, Real Estate, Banking, Reconstruction & Insolvency, Financial Services, Litigation, Employment & Pensions, EU & Competition and Tax.

Our approach has resulted in the firm winning a number of recent awards including "Law Firm of the Year" 2005 at the EVCA/Real Deals European Private Equity Awards for the second successive year, "European Law Firm of the Year" (fund formation) by subscribers to PrivateEquityOnline and Private Equity International, "Private Equity Law Firm of the Year 2004"  at the European Venture Capital journal awards 2004 and 2005, "LBO Firm of the Year" 2004 at the Finance and Law Awards in Paris, "Real Estate Team of the Year" at The Lawyer Awards 2004, and "World's Leading Firm for Private Funds Expertise" in The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers 2003/4.

SJ Berwin LLP was named "UK Firm of the Year" at the 2005 Legal Week Awards on 30th November.2005 The awards recognised SJ Berwin’s five years of international expansion and its involvement in a series of high quality deals. In April 2005 Head of Private Equity, Jonathan Blake, was named Global Lawyer of the Year in the Private Funds category by The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers 2004/2005. In November 2004, Jonathan Blake, was admitted to the British Venture Capital Association “Hall of Fame” for his services to the private equity industry over the last 20 years.

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, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Milan Munich, Paris and Turin.