Legal Brief: High street heroes
As the high street continues to suffer the repercussions of the economic slump lawyers have been kept busy advising on two high-profile retail insolvencies.
Linklaters and Salans clinched top roles advising on the administration of furniture retailer Habitat. The retailer’s UK division went into administration last on 24 June and a team of administrators from Zolfo Cooper has been appointed to oversee the process, which involves selling the UK brand to Home Retail Group (HRG), which already owns Argos and Homebase.
Joint administrators Fraser Gray, Peter Saville, Anne O’Keefe and Scott Gaillie have appointed a team from Salans, led by partner Sonia Jordan, to provide insolvency advice, while Linklaters is advising HRG, led by relationship partner Iain Fenn (read more).
Meanwhile, DLA Piper and Scottish firm Maclay Murray & Spens have taken lead roles on the sale and restructuring of fashion retailer Jane Norman, which entered administration on Monday (27 June).
A team from DLA Piper led by partner Sarah Coucher is advising joint administrators Alastair Beveridge, Simon Appell and Anne O’Keefe from Zolfo Cooper as well as a syndicate of lending banks on the restructuring.
The Maclays team is led by Glasgow-based head of restructuring Michael Hughes who has scored a role advising retail group Edinburgh Woollen Mill, which is purchasing 31 of Jane Norman’s 94 standalone stores across the UK and Ireland under a pre-packaged administration sale (read more).
Elsewhere, private equity lawyers were celebrating one of the biggest deals in the sector since the financial crisis – the sale of the RAC to the Carlyle Group with magic circle firms Clifford Chance, Linklaters are Slaughter and May getting a slice of the action (full article).
