A raft of City firms including SJ Berwin, Clifford Chance (CC) and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have advised on the £357m acquisition of Capital Radio owner GCap Media by rival Global Radio.

CC and Slaughter and May advised Global Radio, which already owns stations such as Heart FM. Corporate partner Joel Ziff took the lead role for CC while Slaughters provided competition advice under partner Philippe Chappatte.

Allen & Overy acted for UBS as financial adviser to Global Radio on its recommended offer, with corporate senior associate Colin Bole taking the lead.

GCap, meanwhile, turned to longstanding adviser Freshfields, with a team led by corporate partner Will Lawes and including Ben Spiers (corporate), Simon Priddis (competition), Simon Evans (employment) and Bea Tormey (dispute resolution) advising.

The transaction also generated a role for SJ Berwin on the finance side. The firm advised Bank of Scotland and Bank of Ireland on the debt finance aspects of Global Radio's bid, with finance partner Stuart Brinkworth leading. Other partners involved in the deal included corporate partners Mark Sanders and William Holder, competition partner Tom Usher and media partner Charlotte McMillan.

The mandate follows SJ Berwin's appointment last year for Bank of Scotland on the financing of Global Radio's £170m buy-out of Chrysalis Radio as well as its involvement for both banks on Global Radio's unsuccessful bid for Emap's radio stations last year.

The deal, which is expected to close at the end of May, will create one of the UK's largest commercial radio groups including brands such as Capital, Heart FM, Classic FM and Galaxy.