News | Real Estate

Friday 9th February 2007

Corporate and commercial law firm SJ Berwin LLP's real estate department has advised British Land on the sale of three Homebase stores: Upton-by-Pass, Wirral, West Station Tunbridge Wells and 25 Stadium Way, Radleigh Weir to St James’s Place UK Plc.  The properties were sold for £44.6 million.

Lewis Myers, real estate partner led the SJ Berwin team, assisted by Mellissa Reid.  Catherine Usher at DLA Piper acted for St James’s Place UK Plc.

SJ Berwin had advised on the acquisition of the stores for British Land in 2006, when five stores were acquired for £52.5 million.

For further information please contact:
Lewis Myers on +44 (0)20 7111 2151, email lewis.myers@sjberwin.com  or Karen Roberts on +44 (0)20 7111 2578, email karen.roberts@sjberwin.com         

• 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 20 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.