News | Real Estate

Tuesday 10th October 2006

Corporate and commercial law firm SJ Berwin LLP was one of the firms which advised The British Land Company PLC on the real estate aspects of a market leading, multi-tranche £1 billion restructuring of its debentures. The restructuring creates the largest individual UK debenture security pool valued at £1.8 billion, and given the overall enlarged size, is expected to improve the liquidity of the debentures, improve common covenants and enhance transparency.

Shareholders will benefit from re-couponing to give a lower average interest cost on the new debentures and British Land will enjoy increased dividend cover and distribution flexibility. The property company also benefits from the creation of a simplified, uniform secured debt structure for the non-securitised part of the group.

SJ Berwin was involved in 11 of the new properties coming into the debenture.  The SJ Berwin team was led by real estate partner Lewis Myers with partner Helen Willett, assisted by associate Robert Kilgour.

The British Land Company plc is a long established client of SJ Berwin.

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 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.