Less than a year after Lloyds floated TSB Bank, Linklaters, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) all secured instructions on its high-profile takeover by Spain’s Banco Sabadell.
Taxpayer-backed lender Lloyds Banking Group formalised the 340p-a-share offer in March and agreed to sell its 50% stake in TSB. The deal values TSB, which is already the UK’s seventh-largest retail bank with 4.5 million customers, at £1.7bn.
Speaking to Legal Business, A&O partner Richard Browne, who advised Sabadell on the offer, said: ‘It’s one of the first cross-border banking deals since the financial crisis and therefore one of the first since the new regulatory regime has been put in place. I envisage that, as the market improves, you would go back to the more normalised level of M&A in the financial institutions sector, with people looking to grow their earnings by diversifying into new geographies.’
HSF acted for TSB with a team led by senior partner James Palmer and corporate partner Mike Flockhart. Palmer worked with the bank’s general counsel Susan Crichton, alongside fellow corporate partner Nicholas Moore and outsourcing partner Nick Pantlin, on its initial public offering (IPO) and all aspects of its separation from Lloyds Bank required for TSB to operate as a stand-alone bank post-IPO.
Linklaters corporate partner Matthew Bland, who also led on the initial £1.5bn IPO for longstanding client Lloyds, was again selected by the bank for the sale of its remaining share in the spin-off.
Alongside Browne, A&O’s team comprised Madrid-based corporate partner Pablo Mayor and antitrust partner Antonio Martinez. Browne added: ‘The fact there’s been no deals for a while in this space has been an unusual state of affairs. I would hope this is the first of a stronger banking M&A market.’
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk