20 December 2004 – LAWFUEL – First for law news – DLA LLP partners Simon Woolley and Jonathan Watkins acted for Bank of Scotland Integrated and Acquisition Finance on the £900 million offer for Big Food Group plc by the Icelandic investors Baugur.
Simon Woolley led the DLA team acting for the syndicate of funders, with corporate partner Jonathan Watkins dealing with the corporate and equity aspects.
The same team acted for Bank of Scotland earlier this year on the £725 million acquisition of the Telegraph group by the Barclay brothers and, in the last two years, have acted for Bank of Scotland in relation to the £915 million offer for Littlewoods plc (also by the Barclay brothers) and the £955 million public to private buyout of Arcadia Group plc by Philip Green.
Commenting on the deal, Simon Woolley said: “This was an extremely difficult deal involving three inter-conditional transactions, as well as complicated facility structures. It was a fantastic team performance on a nationally important and complex deal.”
