Shearman, Slaughters and Weil advise on sale of Liverpool FC
Shearman & Sterling, Slaughter and May and Weil Gotshal & Manges have netted the prize roles on the proposed takeover of Liverpool Football Club by the owner of US baseball franchise the Boston Red Sox.
European managing partner Creighton Condon is understood to be leading the Shearman team acting for longstanding client New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which successfully bid for the Red Sox in 2001. The team also features London corporate co-head Laurence Levy.
Weil Gotshal London managing partner Mike Francies is understood to be advising the current owners of the club Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
Slaughters is believed to be acting for Liverpool, fielding a team led by corporate rainmaker Nigel Boardman and also featuring corporate partner Mark Zerdin.
It is still unclear whether Allen & Overy has a role in the proposed takeover, which still requires Premier League approval before it can progress. Corporate chief Andrew Ballheimer claimed the prize mandate when he advised the Hicks and Gillett consortium on its £470m acquisition in 2007 (6 February 2007).
Readers' comments (17)
Scouser working in Manchester | 6-Oct-2010 1:41 pm
So which firm will be defending The Lawyer against LFC's libel case against it for calling it "a club soon to be plying its trade in the Championship" if it remains in the Premier League at the end of this season...?
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Roy Evans | 6-Oct-2010 1:55 pm
....and which will be acting for Roy Hodgson at his employment tribunal if that prediction turns out to be accurate?
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Kelvin MacKenzie | 6-Oct-2010 2:10 pm
Oops - looks like The Lawyer could be going the way of The Sun in terms of Scouse readership...
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Emlyn Hughes | 6-Oct-2010 4:25 pm
True - suggesting that Liverpool may not be about to win much any time soon is very much the equivalent of splashing on a made up story about their fans stealing from and urinating on the dead
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Scouser working in Manchester | 6-Oct-2010 4:33 pm
I can't see any firm within a 50mile radius of Liverpool wanting to act for Hodgson if he becomes as popular on Merseyside as Kelvin Mackenzie (Hicks and Gillett are coming close...)
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Christiano Ronaldo | 6-Oct-2010 5:01 pm
'Rainmaker' and Liverpool in the same story? LOL. Surely 'garbage collector' is more appropriate?
'Prize role' ?!? Surely you mean 'toilet roll' ?
Why would anyone buy Liverpool FC for 470m when you could probably buy the whole of Liverpool for that?
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Anonymous | 6-Oct-2010 10:26 pm
Nigel Boardman is a top lawyer who knows a lot about football and who loves the game. An excellent choice by the Liverpool Board. If anyone can see this through successfully it is he.
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Rahaw Sanjay | 6-Oct-2010 11:50 pm
Aren’t kopites really embarrassing!!
There is no end to how far you lot will; making movies, protests, banners, flags.
Accept it, you have a future of dreaming of the times you came close to Manchester Utd and Chelsea, now you are a mid-table team with a very average squad, most of whom don’t even want to play for you anymore…..
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Redlondon | 7-Oct-2010 2:09 am
Actually I have very real concerns if this deal doesn't go through that the next trophy the reds win will be the league championship trophy next season. LETS NOT BE THE NEXT NEWCASTLE!!!
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sam | 7-Oct-2010 8:29 am
the future has to be away from no more than what Hicks and the other man are " conmen" thats what they are and thats clear.
What type of people buy a business or anything for that matter and expect people to role up and spend spend and give them hand outs and loans and put hardly next to naff all into their own company! what a joke, a disgrace, hope that they get full bad luck in their future plans, i would live to knock the pair of them out.
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Scep Tick | 7-Oct-2010 9:09 am
"So which firm will be defending The Lawyer against LFC's libel case against it for calling it "a club soon to be plying its trade in the Championship" if it remains in the Premier League at the end of this season...?"
Fair comment, I think...
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Scouser working in Manchester | 7-Oct-2010 4:38 pm
I think Rahaw has either a very short memory or in true Man United blinkered fashion has chosen to forget all the anti-Glazer marches and protests and has probably launderd and put away his green and white shirt......At least we have a fighting chance of getting rid of the yanks that put the club into so much debt.
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Bluenose | 7-Oct-2010 5:15 pm
At the risk of incurring the wrath of the Red side of my home town perhaps it is time to accept that times have changed.
Arguing that you used to be good therefore you will be good again does not work either for my team or the Royal Engineers!
Credit the Yanks for appreciating the business logic of not throwing good money after bad and not wanting to be bullied by ex players and ex celebrities via You Tube!
Accept that people looking to buy it cheap. Accept that if it was the "biggest" club in the world then you would have real interest from real money!
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James | 7-Oct-2010 5:30 pm
Can the club get cameras in the court and sell subscriptions to the live streaming of the case, the club would be loaded after that!
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Mum | 7-Oct-2010 6:42 pm
Is that Nigel's mum posting above comments at 10.26 pm on 6th Oct. - bless ?
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tin hat | 8-Oct-2010 11:56 pm
Get out yanks you done enough damage
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Joe Makepeace | 9-Oct-2010 10:48 am
"There must be some intelligent comment on the proposed LFC takeover by NESV on 'The Lawyer' " I thought to myself.
How wrong could I have been.
The same petty, partisan discussions are being held here as are held in other red-top publications.
Nice to know that the court-room antics and snobbery are just a front.
I shant be returning for information any time soon.
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