A Weil team advised Morgan Stanley on a senior unsecured 364-day high grade bridge facility in connection with the $2.65 billion acquisition of Longview Timber LLC, a US-based forestry company, by Weyerhaeuser Co., a US real estate trust that is one of the largest producer of wood and cellulose fibers, from Brookfield Asset Management Inc. The bridge facility and the acquisition were announced on June 17, 2013, and the acquisition is expected to close in July.

Weyerhaeuser, one of the world’s largest private owners of timberlands, controls and manages more than 20 million acres in North America. Longview Timber owns and manages approximately 650,000 acres of prime, freehold timberlands in Washington and Oregon, representing one of the most valuable freehold timberland portfolios in the region. The transaction is the third largest forest acquisition in North America and will increase Weyerhaeuser’s acreage in the US to about 6.6 million.

The Weil team advising Morgan Stanley included Banking & Finance partner Morgan Bale, Capital Markets partner Jennifer Bensch, M&A partner Ray Gietz, Banking & Finance partner Danek Freeman, Environmental partner Annemargaret Connolly (Washington, DC), Tax partner Larry Horton, Banking & Finance associate Brandon Cherry, Capital Markets associates Rob Beard (Silicon Valley) and Ryan Kirk, Environmental associate Tom Goslin (Washington, DC), and Regulatory associate Erin Yates (Washington, DC) (all in New York unless otherwise specified).

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