Advisers trousering millions as B&B sinks ....

Here is the unedited news from Legalweek about the men in pin stripes picking over the carcass of B&B .....

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has taken a lead role alongside City giant Linklaters as struggling UK lender Bradford & Bingley (B&B) sells a stake to US buy-out giant TPG.

The pair is advising the private equity group, formerly Texas Pacific Group, which today announced it was taking a 23% stake in B&B after the lender was hit by losses relating to its mortgage exposure.

London corporate partner Simon Jay led the team for Cleary on the £179m sale, while Linklaters fielded a team under corporate partners Charlie Jacobs and John Lane.

B&B turned to Herbert Smith, with corporate head Michael Walter and corporate partner Will Pearce heading the line-up for the top 10 City outfit.

Last month Herbert Smith was instructed by B&B as the lender launched a £300m rights issue in a bid to shore up its capital position. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was brought in to advise the underwriting banks, Citi and UBS.

Following TPG’s acquisition of the stake, B&B has restructured the rights issue to raise around £258m.

B&B is among several lenders to turn to rights issues in recent months. Allen & Overy landed a plum role advising HBOS on its £4bn programme while Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) recently announced its own record-breaking £12bn cash-call, with Linklaters leading for RBS and Freshfields advising underwriters Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and UBS

That sounds like a bumper season in hoovering up monster fees for Simon. Charlie, John, Will, Gervaise, Penny etc.,