Andrew Woods

We were engaged on the sale of a successful care home. 

Our clients were confident that there would be a number of parties interested in purchasing the home but did not want to commence negotiating with all of them before deciding which one to proceed with.  The Selling Agents were instructed to prepare and circulate a sales memorandum and a share sale contract to selected interested parties, who were invited to make an offer on the basis of those documents. 

The share sale contract was drafted by us in advance in an even handed manner but on the commercial terms on which the client was going to sell.  This saved the clients a considerable amount of time and money as it avoided unnecessary professional time in negotiating the terms of the transaction. 

Parties interested in purchasing the home were invited to submit a price and payment terms they were prepared to offer, and a return copy of the draft share sale contract with their proposed changes.  

The successful bidder had made very few changes to the final share sale contract and only a single all party meeting was required, which was the final completion meeting.  Usually transactions of this nature would involve numerous meetings prior to the final completion meeting. 

The transaction was headed by Hitendra Patel (Corporate Partner) who was assisted by John Spratt (Commercial Partner), Carol Shaw (Employment Partner), Andrew Woods (Commercial Property Partner), Catherine O’Riordan (Commercial Assistant) and a Trainee Solicitor.

We acted for the seller of a building materials company into the public sector.  Our client’s corporate finance advisers, Bristol York Limited, had negotiated favourable terms for the sale of the client’s company, and the only problem which appeared to exist was that for tax reasons the transaction had to be completed within quite a short timescale.  The transaction proceeded comfortably, with the firm taking responsibility for dealing with the due diligence enquiries of the purchaser, and also assisting in the production of the deal documents.

A few days before we were scheduled to complete the transaction, our team learned that there was a problem with a contract which was key to the business of the company being sold.  This necessitated analysing the company’s position regarding this contract, meeting the clients and finally successfully satisfying the purchaser so that on the one hand our client was fully protected from any claim arising in respect of this contract after completion, and on the other hand satisfying the purchaser sufficiently to enable the transaction to complete.  

The whole team, comprising the Spratt Endicott team, the Bristol York team and the client team were all delighted to conclude the transaction on time and on satisfactory and safe terms.  

We acted for a property company in the acquisition of a brown field site in Harlow.  We also negotiated an Agreement for Lease and Lease with an occupier and disposed of the investment for a consideration of £31M. 

We acted on and co-ordinated the disposal of a 10-property portfolio for £58M.  In addition to acting in the sale of a number of individual properties, we also had to co-ordinate input from other law firms acting on individual properties, and negotiated the contract for the overall portfolio.

We acted for a property developer in bringing together 11 Option Agreements and one Collaboration Agreement, for the comprehensive development of a small town in the East Midlands.