A&O, Addleshaws act on fourth building society merger
Allen & Overy (A&O) and Addleshaw Goddard have faced each other on a fourth building society deal, with the former advising Skipton Building Society's on its takeover of Addleshaws client Scarborough Building Society.
The transaction between the North Yorkshire-based societies is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2009 and will create a top five building society with approximately 860,000 members and over £16bn of assets.
The latest building society merger comes after A&O and Addleshaws acted on opposite sides of the transaction between the Yorkshire and Barnsley Building Societies (TheLawyer.com, 22 October), as well as on Nationwide's takeover of the Cheshire and Derbyshire Building Societies (The Lawyer.com, 8 September).
At A&O corporate partner Richard Slynn (pictured) led the team for each of these transactions. He commented: "I head up our building societies group and we've a number of clients that we work with. It's an interesting area to be in."
A&O's building societies group spans across corporate, capital markets and support groups, having been set up in 1989 to deal with the demutualisation of building societies and ensuing corporate and finance activity.
The Addleshaws team advising Scarborough Building Society was led by financial services partner Adam Bennett and assisted by financial services partner Neil Woolhouse and associate Shubu Patil.
At A&O, Slynn was assisted by corporate senior associate Ben Koehne in a team that included employment partner Stefan Martin, pensions partner Maria Stimpson, pensions associate Caroline Overton and corporate associate Angelene Galway.
