SJ Berwin has landed its first deal for Star Capital Partners in the UK, advising the private equity house on the €330m (£223m) sale of recycling business BUS Group.

SJ Berwin fielded a team under corporate finance partner Tim Wright to advise on the disposal of BUS to Spanish recycling group Befesa Medio Ambiente.

The firm won the work through a referral from its German arm, which has advised Star a number of times in the past.

Befesa was advised by Addleshaw Goddard corporate partner Leslie Jackson. Addleshaws was itself referred the work by Spanish leader Garrigues, which does work for Befesa in Spain and was originally involved in the deal.

Star acquired BUS in January 2005. BUS recovers metals, including zinc and nickel, from dust produced by the steel industry. The metals are either returned to steel producers for reuse or sent to smelters for reprocessing. The company operates from five recycling plants in Germany, France and Sweden.

SJ Berwin won the work in August and advised Star in a competitive bidding process, which Befesa eventually won ahead of two other parties. Although the deal involved the sale of a company with operations outside of the UK to a Spanish company, it was conducted under UK law as Star is based in the UK.

Wright commented: "For us, it is a great example of our international network feeding London. We are having a great run on the private equity side at the moment. That is partly because of luck and partly because of a hell of a lot of groundwork."

Star was established in 2000 and manages more than €1bn (£675m) of funds. It has instructed a number of firms in the UK in the past, including Baker & McKenzie, Slaughter and May, Ashurst, Norton Rose and Clifford Chance.