Linklaters, Cleary in TPG's £150m B&B investment

Linklaters has won a role alongside Cleary Gottlieb advising US private equity giant Texas Pacific Group (TPG) on its £150m investment in UK bank Bradford & Bingley.

Linklaters corporate partners Charlie Jacobs and John Lane lined up alongside regular advisors Clearly Gottlieb in what is believed to be the firm’s first instruction for TPG.

Bradford & Bingley (B&B), which had launched a £300m rights issue to repair its damaged balance sheet, turned to Herbert Smith head of corporate Michael Walter and corporate partner Will Pearce. B&B is now scaling back the issue but will still attempt raise an £258m in a discounted issue at a share price of around 50p.

Cleary Gottlieb’s team was led by London corporate partner Simon Jay. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is representing the underwriters, Citi and UBS, led by financial institutions team leader Will Lawes.

This week B&B announced pre-tax losses of £8m for the first four months of 2008 compared to a profit of £108m for the same period last year.

The mortgage lender also confirmed on Monday that its chief executive, Steven Crawshaw, had stepped down due to health problems.