Development and investment
Examples of our recent work include:
Arora International Hotels
Advising Arora International Hotels on the acquisition of a significant part of the Airport Property Portfolio from BAA/Morley. This was a fast track deal that we exchanged very quickly for our client whilst at the same time ensuring we built in adequate flexibility to accommodate anticipated structuring issues and protection for lenders. The value of the deal was about £300m.
Derwent London
Advising Derwent London on the forward sale of Telstar House, London, a large design-led office development in Paddington, to The Prudential, and its pre-letting to Rio Tinto as its new European HQ. This was effectively a joint venture between Derwent London and The Prudential and our in-depth knowledge of the institutional funding market, from an institutional perspective, was key to delivering this deal for our client with minimum fuss and bother.
More London
Advising More London on one of the largest central London development schemes undertaken in the last ten years. The nature of the project requires expertise across a number of different legal disciplines and we advise on aspects from development and investment and real estate finance through to planning, environmental and construction. The breadth of our expertise is such that we are able to pull together a team with the relevant skills who ensure the smooth running of the project.
Pinder Fry & Benjamin
Advising Pinder Fry & Benjamin LLP on the creation of an offshore fund to invest in speculative data centre developments, and on related investments in sites in Germany, Switzerland and the UK. The structuring of the fund and of the individual investments required input from our investment funds, banking and finance, corporate and tax teams. The UK scheme aims to be the largest data centre business park in the country and the second largest in Europe, with an end value in excess of £1bn.
Spire Technology
Advising Spire Technology (a leading UK data centre developer) on the sale of its Welwyn Data Centre for £49m to current occupier COLT, one of the largest recent transactions in this specialist real estate sector. One of the key issues in the delivery of data centres is the availability of the huge amounts of electricity necessary to drive the on site IT, and the transfer of the energy supply from Spire to COLT was an integral part of the Welwyn deal.
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"Clients note the firm is 'highly entrepreneurial, has good strength and depth and is good at advising on risks.' It has recently been representing institutional clients, such as Invista and AXA, and has also acted for AIB Investment Managers on the disposal of property on the King's Road. New clients include Tesco Pension Fund and NAMA."
Chambers UK 2012