Linklaters

Linklaters’ global real estate M&A team has the expertise to help clients select the right structure for potential investments, from funding, acquisition, sale and leaseback, joint venture and development through to exit. The team has advised on many of the largest recent cross-border real estate M&A deals to have come to market.

The firm’s real estate M&A lawyers devise a range of innovative structures to ensure that clients maximise value, share risk, enhance returns and mitigate tax costs. The team is uniquely able to draw on market-leading global teams in complementary disciplines, such as real estate funds, tax and Banking law.

Recent real estate M&A transactions include advising

• Union Investment on its €316m  acquisition of a 91% stake in the Alexa shopping centre in Berlin

• HSBC on the sale of its global HQ office tower at Canary Wharf in London

• AREA Property Partners (formerly Apollo Real Estate) on several deals including its (and Europa Capital's) JV with Deutsche Bank-owned RREEF Alternative Investments to purchase and leaseback 947 assets (predominantly bank branches with aggregate value of EUR1.15 billion) from Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Spain's second largest bank

• British Land on its €350 million acquisition of a shopping centre and retail park scheme in Murcia – the largest ever retail acquisition in Spain at the time
• Arcapita on the €220 million acquisition of the real estate portfolio and asset management operations of Pinnacle Central & Eastern Europe
• Ivanhoe Cambridge on the forward purchase, in joint venture, of the Vremena Goda Shopping Centre in Moscow
• Beacon Capital Partners on the purchase of 50% of the entity owning the Axa Tower at La Défense, Paris
• SEB Immobilien on the acquisition of Shanghai’s landmark Platinum Building - the first investment in China by any German open ended real estate investment fund