Magic circle firms head up £37bn bank bailout
Allen & Overy, Slaughter and May and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are among the top City firms winning roles on the UK Government's £37bn bailout of three of the country's biggest banks. Freshfields has reprised its role for longstanding client the Bank of England on the rescue plan, fielding a team under corporate partner Michael Raffan. Slaughters is acting for the Treasury on the agreement, which will lead to the Government owning around a 60% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and a stake of around 40% in the merged HBOS and Lloyds TSB.
October 13, 2008 at 02:51 PM
3 minute read
Allen & Overy, Slaughter and May and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are among the top City firms winning roles on the UK Government's £37bn bailout of three of the country's biggest banks.
Freshfields has reprised its role for longstanding client the Bank of England on the rescue plan, fielding a team under corporate partner Michael Raffan.
The firm is also understood to have taken a role advising the sponsors and placing agents to RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS.
A team led by corporate partners Simon Witty and Mark Trapnell is advising Merrill Lynch and UBS for RBS, while a team under corporate partner Julian Makin is advising Lloyds' sponsor banks UBS, Merrill Lynch and Citi.
Will Lawes, co-head of the firm's financial institutions group, and corporate partner Neil Radford are leading for Morgan Stanley and Dresdner Kleinwort, sponsors and placing agents to HBOS.
US securities partner Sarah Murphy and tax partner Jonathan Cooklin are advising in relation to all three.
Slaughters is acting for the Treasury on the agreement, which will lead to the Government owning around a 60% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and a stake of around 40% in the merged HBOS and Lloyds TSB.
Davis Polk and Cravath Swaine & Moore are jointly advising the Treasury on US law aspects. The Davis Polk team is being led by financial institutions partner Jeffrey Oakes in London and Arthur Long in New York. Cravath's team was led by partners Robbins Kiessling and Philip Boeckman.
RBS announced a £20bn capital raising today (13 October), while HBOS and Lloyds will receive £17bn between them, with the bulk going to HBOS. Barclays has confirmed that it intends to raise more than £6.5bn of tier one capital without government help.
Allen & Overy (A&O) is advising HBOS in relation to the bailout, which is part of the broader £500m package of measures announced last week to bring stability to the banking sector. Financial institutions head Alistair Asher is leading the team advising the bank. The firm is also advising Nationwide Building Society in relation to the measures.
Linklaters is also thought to have won roles for two banks as it serves as main corporate counsel to both RBS and Lloyds TSB, with banking head Robert Elliott and corporate partner Jeremy Parr acting as respective relationship partners.
Clifford Chance, meanwhile, is advising long-term client Barclays with a team led by corporate partner Guy Norman.
Last week's rescue package saw the Treasury agreeing to supply up to £50bn in capital to some of the UK's biggest lenders. The broader package includes Government guarantees on up to £250bn of new short and medium-term debt issues and up to £200bn in additional liquidity.
Eight of the UK's biggest lenders initially gave the recapitalisation plan their support; although some, such as HSBC, publicly stated, like Barclays, that they do not intend to take up Government capital. HSBC last week (9 October) strengthened its UK capital though a £750m equity injection from within the group.
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