Biggart Baillie LLP and Herbert Smith advise on £297 million acquisition of Scottish shopping centre
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Leading Scottish firm Biggart Baillie LLP and Herbert Smith have advised a joint venture set up by Hammerson and new client Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) on their acquisition of Silverburn Shopping Centre near Glasgow.
The 50:50 joint venture has acquired the property owning vehicle Retail Property Holdings Ltd from the Elementary Property Company Ltd (acting by its receivers Deloittes) for £297 million. Retail Property Holdings' main asset is the freehold interest in Silverburn, a 93,000 square metre prime regional shopping centre near Glasgow.
The Biggart Baillie team, who provided Scottish law advice on real estate, planning, construction, environmental and corporate matters, was led by Iain McLean (assisted by Scott Buchan and Chris Noble (real estate), Ronnie Brown (corporate), Gwen Taylor (construction), Jessel Gair (planning) and Louise Gibson (environmental)).
Iain McLean commented ”It was great to be able to team up with Herbert Smith and combine our local know-how and shopping centre expertise with their heavy weight corporate deal experience. The deal was put to bed quickly with the Scottish, UK and international property markets looking on with great interest. Hammerson and CPPIB are very happy.”
The Herbert Smith team was led by real estate partner Don Rowlands (assisted by corporate associates Alexis Papasolomontos and Dan Wilson and real estate associates Steve Newson and David Rosen). Herbert Smith Corporate Partner David Paterson and Tax Partner Neil Warriner also provided corporate and tax advice.
Don Rowlands commented: "This is the first example post credit crunch of a large prime retail asset being sold out of an administration process. There were a number of novel issues to deal with on a tight timetable to ensure the administrators could return value to the bank."
The vendors were advised by Ewan Gilchrist and Paul Quinn at Dickson Minto.