Rachael McDonald, Ray Ng and Paul Heath have advised Royal Bank of Scotland plc (“RBS”), as Majority Lender, working with Allen & Overy London, on the appointment of Ernst & Young on 14 June 2011 as BVI administrative receivers to the portfolio of 42 Marriott hotels across the UK, part of a portfolio of Marriott hotels acquired in 2007 from RBS for £1.1 billion by Igal Ahouvi, Quinlan Private and Delek Real Estate.

RBS owns approximately £700m of debt that was used to finance the original acquisition in a syndicated loan structure. There is also an additional loan originally owned by Lehman Brothers that was subsequently acquired by York Capital, the hedge fund group.

The hotels were originally acquired by RBS in April 2006 through the £951m acquisition of Condor Overseas Holdings Limited, a BVI company jointly owned by Whitbread Group plc and Marriott International and then sold on to Igal Ahouvi, Quinlan Private and Delek Real Estate in 2007, in respect of which Simon Schilder and Rachael McDonald also advised RBS (with CMS Cameron McKenna on the acquisition and subsequent on-sale and Allen & Overy on the financing).

RBS had been in talks since 2008 to restructure the debt, which would have seen the bank swap some of its position for ownership of equity.  Rachael McDonald, Paul Heath and Ray Ng were also advising RBS during this period working closely with Allen & Overy.

For further details, please visit: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c39b036-96b7-11e0-baca-00144feab49a,s01=1.html#axzz1PLhLoJv5