Farrers advise supporters on acquisition of Wycombe Wanderers Football Club
Date Posted: 19/07/2012
Author: Anthony Turner
Farrer & Co has advised Wycombe Wanderers Trust Limited on its acquisition of Wycombe Wanderers Football Club from previous owner Steve Hayes.
Wycombe Wanderers are now one of the few Football League clubs in the country to be owned by their own supporters. Under the terms of the deal, the Trust has acquired all of the voting shares in the Club, and has incorporated a separate holding company which will be responsible for the Club's stadium (Adams Park), its Training Ground and the heritage aspects of the Club.
Imperial builds healthy international relations
Date Posted: 03/01/2012
Author: Peter Wienand
Advising Imperial College London on a significant overseas venture.
We advised Imperial College London on its collaboration with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to establish a new medical school in Singapore, which will offer a joint undergraduate medical degree programme when doors open to students in 2013.
A landmark headquarters for WWF-UK
Date Posted: 03/01/2012
Author: Charles Anderson
Advising one of the UK’s leading charities on its headquarters project.
We are advising WWF-UK on the acquisition and development of a new site for the charity’s national headquarters. WWF-UK is seeking to develop a central Woking site to create a landmark building to reflect its mission and profile. We have advised on commercial property/development matters, charity governance and planning and construction/procurement issues.
Going for gold
Date Posted: 23/11/2011
Author: Richard Lane
Mining and exploration company listed on the Alternative Investment Market and the Toronto Stock Exchange.
This year we advised on our first listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, creating a dual listing for Serabi Gold plc, who we previously advised on their admission to London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2005. Serabi is a gold exploration company involved in the evaluation and development of gold deposits in the Tapajos region of northern Brazil. The company’s primary interest is the 100 per cent-owned Palito Gold Mine and a surrounding 53,000 hectares of highly prospective exploration tenements.
Handing control back to charities and schools
Date Posted: 14/10/2011
Author: Sam Macdonald
Independent Schools Council wins judicial review.
In October, the Independent Schools Council (ISC) was granted its application for judicial review of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance on fee-charging in the context of educational charities. We acted for the ISC throughout this influential case.
A matter of trust
Date Posted: 03/10/2011
Author: Jeremy Posnansky QC
A complex divorce case taken to the Court of Appeal.
We acted for a wife in a complex financial claim following her divorce, which included a major issue about the husband’s interest in a family trust. After a hard-fought trial, the High Court judge found that the husband had tried to conceal the truth behind his trust holdings. Taking the trust assets of circa £7million into account, the judge awarded our client a substantial lump sum, far in excess of what the husband had offered.
Growing the UK’s greenest data centres
Date Posted: 05/09/2011
Author: Andrew Bailey
Developing innovative funding structures to help our clients progress.
Highbridge Properties secured £263 million of funding to expand their Cobalt Data Centre Campus near Newcastle, which has a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ certification: a possibly unique award for what is generally thought of as other than environmentally friendly. But there were significant challenges, not least the reluctance of the banks to commit new debt finance to development projects in the current turbulent markets.
A modern private client practice
Date Posted: 21/07/2011
Author: Jim Edmondson
Broad private wealth expertise to meet our clients’ ever changing needs.
We advised a Middle Eastern client on a tax-efficient structure to protect his worldwide assets and to ensure smooth succession to the next generation. By creating a Foundation we have safeguarded family assets during a period of political unrest. Involvement of junior members of the family in the Board of the Foundation has enabled them to ‘buy into’ the family philosophy. The structure has been created to allow flexibility and acknowledge future claims which might be made under Islamic law. We have also advised a Deputy appointed by the Court of Protection to manage the affairs of an elderly lady (‘the Patient’) who has lost mental capacity.
A model for future mergers
Date Posted: 02/06/2011
Author: James Thorne
Collectively advising individual partners involved in creating the UK’s largest firm of property consultants.
We advised the 87 individual equity partners of King Sturge LLP on the firm’s merger with Jones Lang LaSalle. The deal, worth over £195 million, creates the UK’s (and possibly Europe’s) largest firm of commercial property agents.
Successful litigation recompenses client for their loss of £7.65 million
Date Posted: 19/04/2011
Author: Adrian Parkhouse
Protracted professional negligence case results in welcome conclusion for client.
We successfully brought a claim against a client’s former solicitors for negligence in respect of a settlement made with HMRC in 2003. The client was one of several hundred UK companies who filed suits against HMRC, involving a number of test cases in the House of Lords. The issue of negligence stemmed from whether the original solicitors had received the client’s instructions to settle or protect a specific aspect of the claim – its potential entitlement to compensation based on compound rather than simple interest. The difference between the two was £7.65 million, an amount which then formed the basis of our claim.