WFW advises Bondcare on UK care home business acquisition13 November 2019

Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised Bondcare Care Homes (“Bondcare”) on its acquisition of the care home business and group HQ of Darrington Healthcare Limited (“Darrington”).

This was a complex tri-partite arrangement with Bondcare taking full control of Darrington’s operational care home business, and Target REIT taking over the real estate freeholds of the five care homes in question, all of which are located in Yorkshire, England, UK. A property company now owned by Target REIT leases the properties to Bondcare, with the previous owners of Darrington exiting entirely.

Bondcare is part of the Bondcare Group of nursing and care homes, which delivers the highest standard of assisted living to residents and service users across the UK.

WFW London provided Bondcare with both structuring and multi-disciplinary legal advice, including M&A/corporate, tax, real estate, real estate finance, employment, planning and construction expertise.

The team was led by Tax Partner Tom Jarvis and M&A Partner Andy Savage, working closely with fellow Partners Hetan Ganatra and Ranjeev Kumar (both Real Estate), Pauline Page (Construction), Anna Robinson (Employment) and Nick Walker (Planning). They were supported by Associates Alice Everley and Fred Neville-Jones (both Corporate/M&A), Senior Associate David Jacob (Tax), Chris Warwick-Evans (Employment), Emma Backhouse and Rhian Woodend (both Real Estate).

Tom commented: “We’re delighted to have been able to provide Bondcare with first-class tax structuring and legal advice across multiple service lines on this important strategic acquisition for their growing portfolio which demonstrates Bondcare’s commitment to this vitally important sector. That they chose WFW to advise them on another transaction highlights the firm’s increasing reputation for social infrastructure expertise”.

Andy concurred: “We are seeing an increasing amount of activity in infrastructure M&A, including in our growing social infrastructure practice. It was great to advise Bondcare on their role in this complex tri-partite Opco/Propco split”.

Paul Nurick, Bondcare’s CFO, added: “It was a pleasure working with Tom, Andy and the rest of the team at WFW. They know how to execute transactions and their dedication and expertise were key to helping us close this important acquisition that reinforces our presence in the UK care home sector. It’s also a big plus for us to have the tax and legal work done by the same team”.