Driving successful real estate investments and transactions
We are a single source of legal advice for the real estate, tax, capital markets, and related needs of many of the world’s leading real estate investors, investment advisors, and developers.
We can advise and support you through all stages of real estate investments and transactions: our real estate lawyers understand the issues so we can get your deals completed efficiently. Every week, we close deals around the world that range from single assets to global portfolios, across a wide range of mainstream and specialized assets classes.
Our size, capability and experience in all of these aspects make us a go-to law firm for portfolio transactions.
We have structured, negotiated and documented the full range of joint venture transactions. Our clients include public and private pension funds and pension fund advisors, sovereign wealth funds, other institutional investors, private equity funds, public and private REITs, and real estate developers.
“I can confidently say that DLA is the best law firm I have worked with during my 20 years in the real estate industry. They consistently excel at quality of work, attention to detail, responsiveness, and efficiency. They are a great partner and my first choice when it comes to real estate law.”
Client, Legal 500 2024
Our work includes advising on portfolio joint ventures, platform joint ventures providing for the acquisition of assets over time, and joint ventures in which one or more parties contributed properties. We also have experience with joint ventures formed to act as sponsors in private equity funds and real estate funds.
We bring a sophisticated understanding of the increasingly complex aspects of real estate transactions. This includes the related use of real estate investment trusts (REITs), blocker entities and inter-company debt, as well as advising on ERISA in the US. We’ve also responded to the growing appetite for indirect investment into real estate via investment vehicles, be they listed or non‐listed real estate companies, real estate investment funds or REITs.
Our team is also fully integrated with colleagues and practices worldwide, bringing together real estate, financing, regulatory, tax and transactional advice to ensure a full-service approach.
Experience
AEW Capital Management with respect to hundreds of programmatic joint venture transactions deploying multiple billions of dollars with respect to investments in senior housing, student housing, self-storage, medical office, life sciences, data centers, residential build-to rent, social infrastructure and other niche real estate related investments located throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Allianz Real Estate on various investments including: (i) its co-investment into a fund (alongside co-investors Gaw Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs and Great Wall), which has acquired 16 properties in Hong Kong; and (ii) its acquisition of 100% stake (acquired through two stages with 50% stake each) in a portfolio of five modern logistics assets in China which are owned by a Gaw Capital managed fund. The portfolio includes five projects in the areas of Shanghai, Jiaxing, Foshan, Wuhan and Shenyang.
AXA Investment Managers on the acquisition, as part of a core strategy on behalf of a client, of the entire issued share capital of NorthStar Realty Europe Corp. (NYSE: NRE), a NYSE listed REIT, which owns a significant portfolio of 12 office properties and two hotel assets with a combined value of EUR1.1 billion located in key European cities in Germany, the UK and France.
Blackstone in connection with its investment in a series of hyper-scale data center developments projects in Germany, France and Northern Virginia with an estimated development cost of US$7 billion.
Blackstone in the GBP3bn acquisition of Bourne Leisure Group, which operates through the Haven, Butlin’s and Warner Leisure Hotels brands across 56 sites in the UK.
Green Courte Partners in the sale to KKR of The Parking Spot, the largest operator of off-airport parking facilities in the US, along with the sale of over 25 off-airport parking facilities that are managed by The Parking Spot.
Greenland USA in a transaction that involved settlement of litigation and the related restructuring of a joint venture between Greenland and Brookfield Properties for the ownership and development of the US$12 billion Pacific Park project (formerly known as the Atlantic Yards project) in downtown Brooklyn, New York.
Harrison Street Real Estate in numerous matters throughout the US, including: (i) the US$1.9 billion acquisition of Campus Crest Communities, Inc.; (ii) the US$1 billion student housing portfolio sale to Scion Student Communities LP, comprised of 22 properties across 20 universities located throughout the United States; and (iii) the US$420 million acquisition of five senior living properties in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Hines in the acquisition, permitting, financing, and development of the US$2 billion development of air rights above Boston’s South Station.
The HYM Investment Group in all aspects of its US$8 billion development project involving the 161-acre Suffolk Downs site in Revere and East Boston, the largest real estate development project in the history of greater Boston.
The Jacksonville Jaguars (NFL) in the world’s largest stadium renovation project called “The Stadium of the Future (SOTF)”, which will exceed over US$1 billion in construction costs.
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and NorthPoint in a US$8 billion project involving a series of build- to-suit data center transactions for 720 megawatts of capacity.
Oval Real Estate in the acquisition of the entire property asset base of the Janus Henderson PAIF – 38 properties in the UK with circa 300 tenants, valued in excess of GBP900m. We set up the JV between Oval and its investors and established a number of special purpose vehicles into which the properties were acquired, dealing with all of the corporate, tax and financing requirements of the transaction.
Oxford Properties Group (the real estate subsidiary of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) in connection with its investment in the US$25 billion Hudson Yards project in New York City, the largest real estate development project in the history of the US.
Ping An Insurance on the 30% share acquisition from and joint venture with Sun Hung Kai Properties in developing the commercial/retail complex at the West Kowloon Station in Hong Kong with acquisition price of around HKD15 billion.
QTS Realty Trust in connection with its 10 million square foot, US$40 billion data center development on 2,200 acres in Northern Virginia - cited as the single largest master planned data center campus in the world.
Soloviev Realty Group in the US$825 million disposition of a 3-property NYC multi-family portfolio on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and in phase 2 of a 3-phase sale of a US$1.6 billion 5-building NYC multi-family portfolio.
Sterling Bay in the US$6 billion Lincoln Yards project, a 14 million square foot mixed-use development on 53 acres of vacant land within the North Branch Industrial Corridor in the Lincoln Park and West Town community area of Chicago, IL.
Tokyu Land US Corporation in the US$911 million mortgage, senior mezzanine and junior mezzanine refinancing of 425 Park Avenue in Manhattan from a consortium of Japanese lenders.
