Slaughter and May corporate partner David Johnson advised Punch Taverns on its £1.19bn acquisition of Pubmistress, the holding company for Pubmaster Group. The acquisition was financed by a combination of existing resources, cash from Punch’s recent refinancing and a new revolving credit facility with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The Slaughters team included corporate associate Deirdre Coolahan and competition partner Bertrand Louveaux. Pubmistress was advised by Nabarro Nathanson corporate partner Andrew Inkaster, supported by corporate partner Andrew Wigfall and corporate assistant Caroline Newsholme. Deal funder RBS was advised by Clifford Chance finance partner Suzy Stewart.
SJ Berwin corporate partner Michael Goldberg led the team to advise The British Land Company on its £120m buy-out of the 50% it did not already own in BL Universal from its joint venture (JV) partner, GUS Group. The JV was set up in 1997 to acquire 982 properties from GUS. It has since then sold more than 850 of them and invested most of the cash from those disposals in retail parks. GUS was also repaid £43m in shareholder loans previously made to BL Universal. Berwin Leighton Paisner corporate partner Paul Miller advised GUS.
