Bharucha & Partners with Norton Rose and Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA) with best friend Linklaters are advising HSBC on its takeover of the Indian retail and commercial banking business of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for a premium of Rs 444 crore ($95m) over the net asset value of the business.

On the deal, which has been under discussion for one-and-a-half years, Bharucha & Partners rendered legal advice on Indian laws for HSBC while Norton Rose counselled the buyer on the international transactional law aspects.

RBS on the other instructed Talwar Thakore & Associates and its best-friend firm Linklaters to advise on domestic and international laws respectively.   

Bharucha co-founding partner Alka Bharucha led the team with senior associates Dipankar Bandyopadhyay and Jay Parikh on this deal.

Norton Rose Hong Kong based corporate finance partner Richard Crosby led for HSBC internationally.

At Talwar Thakore partners Suresh Talwar and Feroz Dubash led the team, assisted by managing associates Ravi Kumar and Janhavi Gadkar and senior associate Shruti Zota.

Linklaters corporate partner Matthew Middleditch took charge from London.

The current acquisition of the retail and small and medium enterprises (SME) business of RBS, which is still subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to complete in the first half of 2011 as per company statement.

RBS had previously acquired ABN Amro Bank through which it entered commercial banking in India in 2007.

The RBS assets in India have 1.1m customers, over 1,800 staff and 31 branches, adding to HSBC's existing India operation of nearly 2m customers and 50 branches in 29 cities.

The value of the deal, which is set to complete early next year, is not been disclosed.