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
Advising 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.
Representing 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.
Advising Carlyle in relation to the disposal to Ivanhoe Cambridge of a 430,000 m2 logistics portfolio (17 assets) and the Hub&Flow brand. The deal was structured as a framework share deal relating to 17 PropCos.
Advising Allianz Real Estate on various investments including:
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.
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.
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.
Blackstone in the GBP3bn acquisiton of Bourne Leisure Group, which operates through the Haven, Butlin’s and Warner Leisure Hotels brands across 56 sites in the UK.
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.
Artemis Real Estate Partners in connection with (i) the US$242 million sale of The Uplund Kirkland Apartments, a 409-unit apartment complex located in Kirkland, Washington; (ii) the acquisition and joint venture for a US$185 million industrial development project in Calimesa, CA; and (iii) the acquisition, joint venture, and financing, with Rendina, of a portfolio of 6 health care campuses.
ASB Capital Management in connection with (i) the US$420 million sale of an 18-building portfolio of retail properties in Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.; and (ii) the US$210 million sale of Two Financial Center, a 10-story office building in downtown Boston, MA.
The Carlyle Group in connection with: (i) a programmatic joint venture to acquire, develop and lease industrial properties in New York and New Jersey; and (ii) a programmatic joint venture to acquire self-storage assets.
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, NY.
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$600 million sale of 27 hospitals and medical office buildings across 10 states.
Oxford Properties Group in one of the most significant real estate transactions in the US in recent years: the acquisition of the former St John’s Terminal in New York City, the transformation of that property into a 1.7 million square foot state-of-the-art office campus, and the ultimate sale of the property to Google for US$2.1 billion. This was the largest office building transaction in the US since the start of the global pandemic and it garnered significant press, including front page articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
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.
Union Square Station Associates LLC in a joint venture with USAA Real Estate Company (Affinius Capital) to develop a US$1.5B mixed-use transit-oriented development of 2.4 million SF in Union Square, Somerville, MA.
Ventas Life Science & Healthcare Real Estate Fund in connection with (i) the US$1.1 billion acquisition of three life science buildings in South San Francisco, California; and (ii) a US$204 million acquisition of 18 medical office buildings in Texas and Kansas from Ardent Health.
Washington Real Estate Investment Trust (WashREIT) in connection with (i) the US$766 million sale of a 12-office property portfolio in Washington, DC (6 buildings) and northern Virginia (6 buildings) to Brookfield Asset Management; and (ii) the sale of 8 separate retail assets in the Washington DC metro area for US$168 million.
