The developer became a casualty of the housing downturn earlier this month when it announced that it had appointed Ernst & Young as its administrator.
Norton Rose corporate finance partner Simon Sackman and insolvency partner Hamish Anderson took the lead role for City Lofts and administrator Ernst & Young, assisted by banking partner James Stonebridge and dispute resolution partner Radford Goodman.
Meanwhile, Allen & Overy (A&O) has advised Lehman Brothers and JER Partners, which both had stakes in City Lofts. The firm fielded a team led by corporate partner George Knighton and restructuring partner Ian Field.
A&O previously advised Lehman and JER-owned fund Lara JV Luxembourg as major shareholders in City Lofts when the developer went private at the beginning of this year.
Clifford Chance has also won a role on the administration, acting for creditior banks including HBOS under the leadership of restructuring partner Nicholas Frome, assisted by real estate partner Jane Cheong Tung Sing.
City Lofts’ administration is just one in a series of bad news announcements from the housing sector in recent weeks as a string of companies report redundancies and plummeting share values.
Earlier this month house builder Barratt Developments said it would be cutting up to 1,200 jobs, while rival Taylor Wimpey announced it was planning to cut 900 jobs and close 13 of its 39
Commenting on the transaction, Norton Rose’s Stonebridge said: “This is symptomatic of the general malaise in the house-building market at the moment. We can expect to see more companies going into administration should things continue as they are.
“Although the prevailing view is that corporate recovery is still a relatively quiet area, we are seeing a significant increase in work as the credit crunch feeds into the real economy.”