News | Real Estate

Monday 27th November 2006

Corporate and commercial law firm SJ Berwin LLP has advised Hilton Hotels on the sale of its two Metropole Hotels in Birmingham and London for £417 million as part of Hilton’s asset sale programme.  Contracts have been exchanged with Dr Edward Wojakovski’s family owned Tonstate for the 1,054 room Hilton London Metropole and the 794 room Hilton Birmingham Metropole.  Hilton will retain long term management contracts on both hotels. 

The SJ Berwin team was led by Corporate Real Estate partner David Ryland who advised on structuring, commercial and real estate issues; the team included partner Adrian Brettell who advised on tax and associates Patrick Ryan and Stephen Marshall who advised on real estate issues.  David Ryland is widely regarded as one of the leading hotel lawyers in the country. 

This is the latest of a string of transactions, which SJ Berwin has advised Hilton on in the past couple of years including the long term management agreement with Quintain Estates & Development on a new 400 bedroom hotel in Wembley, the sale of 15 hotels to Managed Hotels Unit Trust for £382.4 million and the sale of 11 hotels to a joint venture vehicle Stardon UK Ltd for £111 million.

Gary Paddison of DLA Piper advised Tonstate.

For further information please contact:

David Ryland on +44 (0)20 7111 2252, email david.ryland@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 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.