City trio bag roles on Bradford & Bingley rescue

Ashurst, Herbert Smith and Slaughter and May have been handed leading roles in the rescue package for Bradford & Bingley.

After a weekend of emergency negotiations, it was agreed that Spanish bank Santander will take over B&B’s savings business and branches while the £50bn lending business will be nationalised.

Herbert Smith corporate head Michael Walter advised B&B alongside corporate partners Will Pearce and Adam Levitt, as well as restructuring partners Kevin Pullen and Laurence Elliott.

Santander called on Ashurst’s new senior partner Charlie Geffen along with corporate partner James Perry and commercial partner Clive Tucker.

Slaughter and May is representing the Government.

The part-nationalisation was approved by Gordon Brown yesterday as part of a rescue package for the ailing lender.

B&B’s £50bn mortgages and lending business will now be underwritten by the taxpayer.

Herbert Smith, led by Walter, advised B&B on its £300m rights issue in May.
(The Lawyer May 14 )

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer deployed a team of over 40 lawyers to advise the Bank of England in relation to the rescue, including designing the structure which split out the retail deposits sold to Santander and the associated financing.

The Freshfields team was led by Michael Raffan, head of the firm's financial services group, and also included corporate partners Graham Nicholson and Philip Richards, finance head Alan Newton and restructuring partner Richard Tett.