British Aerospace (BAe) turned to Allen & Overy (A&O) over its other relationship firms for its £700m exchangeable bond issued last week because of the City firm's intimate knowledge of its business.
The bond – the largest such security issued by a UK company and a first in the mobile phone sector – is exchangeable into ordinary shares of Orange held by BAe and so allows the company to dispose of its stake in a tax efficient manner.
Capital markets partner Richard Cranfield led a team of five lawyers that included client relationship partner Jeremy Thomas and tax partner Brenda Coleman.
Terence Black, BAe deputy legal director, finance, said: "We went to A&O because Jeremy Thomas had always handled our involvement with Orange. It was the first time that we have worked with Richard Cranfield, but he came across as very capable and very impressive."
Cranfield said he was attracted to the exchangeable bond issue because: "You call the economic interest in the shares by issuing the bond, but don't crystallise the tax charge."
He added that BAe also had a cash-out option so that when investors looked to exchange the bonds, the company could pay off the debt in cash and so could postpone the tax charge even further.
Clifford Chance debt and equity markets partner Andrew Morris led a team, which included corporate partner Mark Poulton, advising the joint-book runners Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
Meanwhile, BAe is in the middle of a lengthy investigation by the UK and European competition authorities into its acquisition of GEC's defence manufacturing arm Marconi.
Freshfields corporate partner Charles ap Simon is leading the team advising GEC. Partner Deirdre Trapp is handling the UK and EU competition advice with Linklaters head of competition David Hall working alongside BAe's deputy legal director, corporate, Andrew Gallagher.
Ap Simon said the UK Government had evoked article 233 of the Treaty of Rome so that the military aspects of the merger were dealt with by the Office of Fair Trading with the remainder falling under the eye of the European Commission.
Ap Simon said: "It is hoped that we will know where we are in August."