Sandpiper’s acquisition of CI Traders

Jonathan Walker, Liz Breen, Jeremy Berchem and Lisa le Maistre, working with a team from Ashurst in London, acted for the Governor and Company of the Bank of Scotland as the providers of bank funding for the acquisition by private equity investors of the CI Traders group, the largest trading group in the Channel Islands.

The acquisition was effected by way of scheme of arrangement and related to corporate and real property assets of the group. It is believed to have been the first Jersey corporate acquisition by way of a scheme of arrangement.

For the bank, corporate assets, financial assets and real property had to be reported on and a security structure had to be devised over the financial assets of the group, over more than 50 companies and more than 30 separate Jersey property titles, so as to resemble as closely as possible the security which would have been available to lenders in England.

This is believed to have been one of the largest and most complex corporate acquisitions ever seen in the Channel Islands. The Employment Law team at Mourant also gave advice on certain employment law issues related to the transaction.

September 2007