In an oven dried Schlenk tube 1.02 g of dibromide 1 (2.32 mmol) and 0.52 g of 2-bromoaniline were dissolved in DMF. The solution was degassed three times then 1.6 mL of Et 3 N (1.16 g, 11.5 mmol, 4.95 equiv.) was added with a syringe and the mixture was heated to 130 • C. After 24 hours the mixture was cooled to room temperature. Deionized water (25 mL) was added and the mixture was extracted with DCM . The organic phase was washed with brine , water (2x25 mL), dried over MgSO 4 and the solvent was removed by rotary evaporation. Flash chromatography gave 0.887 g of product 3 (85%). In an oven dried Schlenk tube 155 mg of bromide 3 (0.34 mmol) was dissolved in 5 mL of dry THF. The solution was degassed three times. In a second Schlenk tube 3 mL of dry THF was degassed three times and 0.05 mL of dry DMF (55 mg, 0.76 mmol, 2.2 equiv.) was added. The bromide solution was cooled to -78 • C and 0.3 mL of n-BuLi (1.4 M in hexane, 0.41 mmol, 1.2 equiv.) was added dropwise. The mixture was kept at this temperature for an additional 10 minutes and the cooling bath was removed. After 30 minutes the solution turned brown and the mixture was cooled to -78 • C again. The DMF solution was added via PTFE cannula within a minute. The mixture was kept at -78 • C for 10 minutes and was stirred for 2 hours at RT. Then 0.1 mL of 2M HCl (0.21 mmol, 0.6 equiv.) was added. The resulting solution was dried over MgSO 4 and the solvent was removed. Flash chromatography on a 10 g column (20-100% DCM in heptane) gave 87 mg of product 4 (64%) as pale yellow solid. 13 C-NMR: δ = 191.33 (CH); 153.76 (C q ); 134.66 (2C q ); 134.44 (CH); 133.30 (2C q ); 132.81 (2C q ); 131.24 (2C q ); 130. Methyl 2- azepin-4-yl)benzoate 5: