DEALS OF THE WEEK 8.03.2001

Most colourful deal: City firm Ashurst Morris Crisp is acting for Paddington Develop-ment Corporation on the pre-letting of a 228,000 sq ft office building, known...Most colourful deal: City firm Ashurst Morris Crisp is acting for Paddington Develop-ment Corporation on the pre-letting of a 228,000 sq ft office building, known as The Point, to telecoms company Orange in the first part of an 800 million regeneration of this run-down part of west London.

Bristol-based Burges Salmon advised Orange.

Smartest deal: Oxford firm Linnells advised the Concert Party on the sale of TecSmart to OFEX-traded cash shell company Maximusic Dot Com, advised by Hobson Audley.

TecSmart was the holding company for the Banque-Tec Group, which develops Smartcards.

The deal valued TecSmart at 3.4 million.

Most central deal: Freshfields advised the London Stock Exchange, Travers Smith Braithwaite CRESTCo and Clifford Chance the London Clearing House the three institutions at the heart of Londons financial markets in the launch of their joint initiative, the central counterparty service, billed as the biggest shake-up in the UK equity market since the introduction of electronic trading.

Most immature deal: The London office of US firm Altheimer & Gray advised mykindaplace.com, a Web site for teenage girls on the acquisition of Wowgo.com, which had gone into liquidation, for an undisclosed sum.

City firm Lewis Silkin advised the liquidators.Most on-call deal: City firm Richards Butlers Hong Office represented Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, the largest Philippine telecoms company and majority shareholder in the Philipino Telephone Corporation (Piltel) on Piltels $930 million debt restructuring deal.

Linklaters acted for Piltel, while US firm Dewey Ballantine provided US law advice.

Allen & Overy acted for the bank group.

Best planned deal: Surrey firm Stevens & Bolton advised the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust on negotiating the planning agreement for the redevelopment of the new Queen Charlottes Chelsea Hospital site.

The firm acted on the disposal of the old site to Crest Homes, advised by City firm Davies Arnold Cooper, for residential development.Best packaged deal: Herbert Smith advised the Eurotunnel group of companies on the UK, US and French aspects of its involvement in the repackaging of around 1 billion of participations in its junior bank debt.

Clifford Chance advised Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Merrill Lynch as dealer managers, while US firm Sidley & Austin acted for MBIA Assurance, the guarantor of certain of the bonds involved.

Fellow US firm Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft represented more than 20 key UK and US junior debt holders.