Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has advised an investment consortium made up of opportunistic funds managed by Blackstone, TPG Special Situations Partners (TSSP) and CarVal Investors (CarVal)  on the acquisition of a portfolio of first lien mortgage loans from GE’s UK Home lending business.  The loans have a face value of £3.8 billion (US$5.9 billion).

Involving a complex financing package of two new senior debt facilities provided by HSBC and a syndicate of Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the transaction was structured, negotiated and signed in only nine days and completed on Friday 4 December 2015.

This is the second such acquisition that BLP has completed for Blackstone and TSSP this year, having advised on a similar large mortgage portfolio purchase from GE Home Lending in August 2015.

Prashanth Satyadeva, Structured Debt and Capital Markets Partner, BLP commented: “We are delighted to have worked for the consortium on such a complex deal which required a large cross-practice team to ensure that it was completed within the very tight and challenging timescales.”

The BLP team was co-led by Structured Debt and Capital Markets Partners Paul Severs and Prashanth Satyadeva, supported by a Partner team including Nick Myatt (Corporate Finance); Nick Butler (Structured Debt and Capital Markets); Jayne Black and Derek Hrydziuszko (Banking) and Michael Wistow (Tax). Further support was provided from BLP’s Structured Debt & Capital Markets, Asset Finance, Projects, Banking, Corporate Finance, Real Estate Finance, Real Estate and Tax departments with specialist advice from the Firm’s Employment, Antitrust & Competition and Regulatory teams.

Allen & Overy acted for GE Capital, Freshfields acted for HSBC and Clifford Chance advised the Citibank/Deutsche Bank/BAML syndicate. Freshfields separately advised on the equity structuring of the Blackstone/TPG/CarVal consortium. Luxembourg law advice was provided by Elvinger, Hoss & Prussen and Florida law advice by K&L Gates.