Lawyers 443
Turnover £108.7 million
Offices 4
Last year this full-service national firm advised Transport for Wales (TfW) and the Welsh government on the transfer of the Core Valley Lines railway network, a busy suburban service radiating from Cardiff, from Network Rail to TfW. In a groundbreaking project that featured the nationalisation of TfW’s rail service and the first transfer of an operational GB railway from Network Rail to a third party, it then advised on the grant of a lease of all of the transferred assets to Amey Infrastructure Wales as its new infrastructure manager.
Burges Salmon advised the shoe manufacturer and retailer Clarks as borrower on the refinancing of its debt facilities, which was undertaken alongside a £100 million equity investment by LionRock.
Other highlights include advising the investment trust GCP Infrastructure Investments on a £17 million funding of the first phase of Eden Geothermal’s pioneering deep-geothermal heat-and-power project. The funding, from GCP Infrastructure Investments, the European Regional Development Fund and Cornwall Council was to enable the drilling of the first well to begin the project. The aim is to build a geothermal plant on the Eden Project site in Cornwall, using heat from the granite deep underground.
★ Commended for company & commercial; family
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Scotland
Lawyers 26
Offices 1
In February the firm advised Bio Capital, a renewable energy investment platform, on an £85 million debt financing of its portfolio of anaerobic digestion plants across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The technology uses microorganisms to break down biomass such as manure or food waste, releasing gas that can be used to generate renewable heat and power. The syndicated financing was provided by NatWest, Allied Irish Banks and Banco Sabadell.
Its corporate finance team advised the global renewable energy developer BayWa r.e. UK on the acquisition of a proposed wind farm from Blue Energy. The High Constellation site, which will have ten turbines, is on the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland.
The corporate finance team was also instructed by the animal genetics company Genus on its partial acquisition of Xelect Limited, a company based in St Andrews that provides fish farmers with genetic services such as sex determination, stock tracing and disease identification.
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★ Commended for planning
To browse the 200 Best Law Firms 2022, go to thetimes.co.uk/bestlawfirms