News | Real Estate

Monday 8th May 2006

Corporate and commercial law firm SJ Berwin LLP has advised The British Land Company PLC on its purchase of the units in The Ropemaker Place Property Unit Trust for a price in excess of £130 million.  The vendor was Grandbesitz, the German open ended fund advised by DB Real Estate.  The trust owns the freehold interest in Ropemaker Place, an island site just over one acre fronting Ropemaker Street, London EC2.  The site has detailed planning consent for 505,000 sq ft of offices.

The development is part of British Land's sizeable City development programme.

The SJ Berwin team that advised British Land was led by real estate partner Jeff Smith, assisted by Helen Murcott, with partner Michael Goldberg advising on the corporate side, assisted by Toby Dean and Giles Bavister on tax.  The vendors were advised by Jo Conder and Jonathan Evans of Linklaters.

• 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 on 30 November.  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 22 are partners (3 of which are tax partners), and 50 assistants, encompassing the disciplines of Commercial Real Estate, Construction, Planning & Environment, Property Litigation, Real Estate Funds and Tax.  There is an increasing emphasis on cross firm activity with related areas of Banking and Corporate.  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 23% of the firm's total revenue.