Sale and leaseback of distribution centres

Bridgestone Australia Limited is the Australian arm of the globally renowned tyre manufacturer.

Piper Alderman’s role involved drafting and negotiating on behalf of Bridgestone, separate sale contracts for each state, drafting and negotiating the leaseback arrangements from the buyer back to Bridgestone, and facilitating contemporaneous completion of eight transactions across four states.

Complexities arose because of each State’s individual disclosure regimes, and the differences between each State’s standard industry contracts, and the challenge was simplifying those complexities by aligning the parties’ legal, commercial risk and transactional outcomes to facilitate simultaneous settlement over multiple jurisdictions.

Settlement of nine of the sites occurred on the same day in December 2022, and settlement of the remaining site occurred in March 2023.