Real Estate & REITS

• Brookfield-sponsored private real estate fund in the $750 million acquisition of 34 senior living communities from HealthPeak Properties.
• The Boys’ Club of New York, in the sale and leaseback of its headquarters, the Harriman Clubhouse, located at 287 East 10th Street in New York.
• BrightSpire Capital, Inc., formerly known as Colony Credit Real Estate, in the $223 million sale of a portfolio of development and non-accrual investments. 
• Colony Capital, Inc. in the following transactions:
  
  • its $5.9 billion agreement to sell Colony Industrial, the industrial real estate assets and affiliated industrial operating platform of Colony Capital, to Blackstone. 
  • its $2.8 billion sale of six hospitality portfolios to Highgate, a real estate investment and hospitality management company. 
  • the $1.16 billion acquisition of a national portfolio of 54 light and bulk industrial buildings by its affiliates.
• Harbor Group International in the acquisition of a 36 apartment portfolio for $1.85 billion, the 5th largest apartment portfolio sale to date. 
• Harbor Group in its acquisition and financing of 545 Washington Blvd., an 866,706 square foot high-profile building located in Jersey City, New Jersey, from the LeFrak Organization.
• Hudson’s Bay Company in its $100 million sale of the Lord + Taylor brand and related intellectual property to Le Tote, including providing the related real estate advisory work and real estate “dirt” diligence regarding the Le Tote portfolio.
• IO Data Centers LLC, a leading colocation data center services provider, in connection with the sale of its business to Iron Mountain Incorporated for a purchase price of $1.34 billion. 
• Paramount Group, Inc. and its affiliates in connection with the following transactions:
  
  • Acquisition of Market Center, a two-building Class A 753,000 square-foot office complex in San Francisco’s South Financial District, for $722 million.
  • Acquisition of a 44% joint venture interest in 55 Second Street, a 386,965 square-foot office building located in San Francisco.
  • Acquisition of 111 Sutter Street, a 293,000 square foot office building located in San Francisco’s North Financial District, for $227 million. 
  • Acquisition of 50 Beale Street, a Class A office building located in San Francisco, from a joint venture of Rockefeller Group Development Corp. and Mitsubishi Estate of New York.
  • Acquisition of 440 Ninth Avenue by a joint venture between Paramount and Sherwood Equities, Inc.
  • Acquisition of a portfolio of Manhattan properties, including 712 Fifth Avenue, 745 Fifth Avenue, Financial Square (a/k/a 32 Old Slip) and 152 East 52nd Street.
    
     

• Apex Group Ltd., a Genstar Capital portfolio company, in the acquisition of real estate service provider Retransform.
• Blantyre Capital on its acquisition of a Frankfurt hotel and partnership with the LyvInn hotel brand. 
• Brookfield Asset Management in connection with its strategic partnership with King Street Properties, including an investment of approximately $1.5 billion in equity capital towards King Street's life science real estate pipeline. 
• Capital Senior Living in a strategic PIPE transaction with investor Conversant Capital. 
• Choice Hotels International in its approximately $675 million acquisition of Radisson Hotel Group Americas. 
• DeBartolo Realty Group in connection with its acquisition by Simon Property Group, the first combination of REITs with assets held through UPREIT structures.
• DigitalBridge Group, a leading global digital infrastructure REIT, in connection with its $3.2 billion agreement to sell its Wellness Infrastructure business to real estate investment firms Highgate Capital Investments and Aurora Health Network. 
• Five Arrows Principal Investments and IK Investment Partners on agreement for Insight Partners to invest in iad, the leading French digital network of real estate agents. 
• HBC in its investment in Convene and creation of a leading flex space operator. 
• StoneVest, Wulf Meinel and Bruce Jenyon on the formation of the IPE platform and IPE on the acquisition of the first two properties. 
• Sunrise Senior Living, Inc. in connection with real estate matters relating to its definitive merger agreement to be acquired by Health Care REIT, Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.9 billion (including debt).
• TA Associates in connection with its contemplated acquisition of a 25% stake in Foncia, a major provider of residential property management services in Europe, majority owned by Partners Group. 
• The founders of von Poll Immobilien, a leading German residential real estate agency, in connection with their sale to private equity firm Deutsche Beteiligungs AG. 
  
   

• A partnership of Citigroup and Goldman Sachs in connection with furnishing $2.2 billion in aggregate financing commitments for the bid to acquire Extended Stay Hotels by affiliates of Starwood, TPG and Five Mile Capital Partners. 
• Colony Capital, Inc. in connection with multiple loans secured by assets in its light industrial portfolio including the following transactions:
  
  • A $1.515 billion financing secured by a portfolio of 158 U.S. healthcare properties consisting of medical office buildings, senior housing properties, skilled nursing facilities and hospitals.
  • A $100 million financing secured by a portfolio of 30 warehouse properties located in northern New Jersey. 
  • A refinancing secured by interests in multiple select service, extended stay and limited service hotels located in 15 states. 
• Deutsche Bank AG New York Branch, as administrative agent, in connection with the revolving credit facility for Host Hotels & Resorts, L.P.
• Deutsche Bank Americas and Wells Fargo Bank in connection with a $325 million refinancing of Castle & Cooke, Inc.’s property portfolio located in Hawaii, Arizona, and California.
• DiamondRock Hospitality Company in connection with the modification of its mortgage loan financing with respect to the Lexington Hotel in midtown Manhattan. We also advised DiamondRock in the amendment and restatement of its revolving credit facility, a simultaneous new term loan facility, and its subsequent $200 million term loan. 
• Faena Group and Access Industries in connection with their development of the Faena District in Miami Beach, Florida.
• Goldman, Sachs & Co. and its affiliates in connection with the following transactions:
  
  • Refinancing by Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company funded by $1.85 billion of first mortgage and mezzanine loans secured by a portfolio of hotels located in Hawaii and San Francisco owned by Kyo-ya Hotels & Resorts, LP and Kokusai Kogyo Holdings K.K.
  • The proposed origination of more than $1 billion through mortgage and mezzanine financings secured by a portfolio of resort hotels on the Pacific rim.
  • Mini-permanent financing of the Sands Expo Convention Center in Las Vegas.
  • Take-out refinancing of a construction loan for a regional mall constructed as part of The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.
  • Permanent mortgage financings for affiliates of Vornado Realty Trust and Crescent Real Estate Equities Company.
• Hudson’s Bay Company in connection with the following transactions:
  
  • The $400 million mortgage refinancing of the Lord & Taylor flagship property in New York City.
  • The $1.25 billion CMBS financing deal secured by its flagship Saks Fifth Avenue store property in New York City. The mortgage loan is based upon an assessed value that is significantly more than HBC paid for its entire Saks & Co. portfolio in 2013, and proceeds from the loan will be used in part to fund a renovation of the Saks flagship.
• Lehman Brothers in connection with a number of financing matters, including:
  
  • Origination of mortgage and mezzanine loans and preferred equity investments with respect to asset classes as varied as data centers, luxury golf-course developments and urban residential condominium projects.
  • Restructuring of various debt and equity relationships with a major private developer and owner of an office building portfolio in the southeastern United States.
  • Marketing and potential sale of REO assets acquired by Lehman.
• J.P. Morgan in connection with mortgage financings made to two Dow 30 companies.
• JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. in the refinancing of Golden West Food Group, Inc.’s existing credit facility.
• Paramount Group, Inc. in connection with a number of financing matters, including the $860 million refinancing of 1301 Avenue of the Americas, a 1.8-million-square-foot Class A, trophy office building located between 52nd and 53rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. 
  
   

•  A Prominent Investment Firm and its affiliates in connection with the following:
  
  • Joint venture with an affiliate of Rosemont Realty to acquire two office buildings located in Dallas for $80 million.
  • Joint venture with an affiliate of Fortune International to acquire vacant waterfront property in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, in contemplation of the future development of a luxury high-rise residential complex.
  • Joint venture to acquire the 200-residence Trump Hollywood condominium in Hollywood Beach, FL. The interests in the property were acquired by a purchase and subsequent foreclosure of the then existing secured financing for a purchase price of approximately $151 million.
• Apollo Real Estate Advisors in connection with modifying its joint venture arrangement in respect of the development of 1111 Marcus Avenue located in Long Island, NY.
• Colony Capital, Inc. in its strategic joint venture to invest up to $500 million in oil and gas properties.
• The Generation Companies and joint venture partner StepStone Real Estate in the disposition of a portfolio of 18 extended-stay hotel properties under the Hilton, Choice and IHG brands, together with the related operating business, for approximately $213 million.
• Jiaming Investment (Group) Co., Ltd. in connection with a joint venture with Tishman Speyer for the construction of "The Spiral," a 65-story, 2.8 million square-foot office tower to be located at the Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side. 
• Meadow Partners and Trammell Crow Company (TCC) in connection with their joint acquisition of an 80 percent condominium interest in the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Building, located at 888 16th Street, NW in downtown Washington, DC. 
• Non-Debtor Affiliates of Lehman Brothers in connection with the following:
  
  • Complex restructuring of an existing joint venture relationship with Goldman Sachs in connection with a recapitalization of a portfolio of multi-family residential properties in the Southeast United States. The transaction also involved the closing of a new $181,500,000 mortgage financing with Freddie Mac, and an equity conversion and partial pay-down of $332,000,000 of existing mortgage indebtedness.
  • Joint venture with real estate developer Flank Inc. for the acquisition of an apartment building in the West Village section of Manhattan. 
• Pace Gallery in its joint venture arrangements with Acquavella Galleries and Gagosian Gallery, and the joint venture in its agreement with the estate of billionaire art collector and former PaineWebber chairman Donald Marron to sell Mr. Marron’s art collection valued at over $300 million.
• Paramount and Colony in connection with the formation of a joint venture for purposes of making a $125 million preferred equity investment in connection with the acquisition of One Court Square, a 1.5 million square-foot, 50-story office property located in Long Island City, New York.
• Scout Real Estate Capital in connection with a joint venture with an affiliate of ING Clarion Partners for the acquisition and renovation of the Sea Crest Resort and Conference Center located in Cape Cod, MA.
• Standard Real Estate Investments, LP, in its industrial property investment venture with GCM Grosvenor.
  
   

• The Ownership of 1285 Avenue of the Americas in connection with law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP’s extension of its New York headquarters lease.
  Bloomberg L.P. in connection with the following leasing and development work:
  
  • Development of The Bloomberg – JFK Airport Park Solar Project, a state-of-the-art solar project that will enable Bloomberg's global headquarters in midtown Manhattan and its downtown data center to partially convert to clean solar energy. 
  • 15-year lease of a single-story data center facility of approximately 131,805 square feet of gross floor area located at 155 Corporate Drive, Hamlet of Orangeburg, Town of Orangetown, New York.
• A joint venture between Brookfield Properties and CIBC World Markets in connection with the leasing of 900,000 square feet of space at 300 Madison Avenue to Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
• CIBC World Markets in connection with negotiating its triple net lease of the entire 30-story, 1.2 million square-foot building located at 300 Madison Avenue, from Brookfield Properties.
  
   

Willkie is recognized internationally as having one of the world’s pre-eminent business reorganization and restructuring advisory practices, with market-leading experience in all aspects of business and financial restructurings. Representative real estate restructurings include the following:

Creditor/Lender/Investor Representation:

• Citigroup in connection with the following: 
  
  • The Extended Stay portfolio auction in its publicly announced mortgage loan commitment to the consortium led by Starwood Capital.
  • The workout of loans on a major mall in the United States.
• Lehman Brothers and its affiliates in connection with the following: 
  
  • Affiliates of Lehman Brothers in the potential restructuring of their investments in joint ventures formed for the purpose of developing luxury residential condominiums in Manhattan.
  • Lehman Brothers in connection with issues relating to loans for a condominium project in downtown Manhattan.
• The Receiver Appointed For One Madison Avenue in New York in connection with a troubled luxury residential condominium development.
• Trinity Church in connection with its workout and settlement negotiations, as well as litigation (including a major Yellowstone motion victory for Willkie), regarding a major mixed-used development ground lease project located in downtown Manhattan.
• Ventas, Inc. in connection with the restructuring of a triple-net master lease relating to a large portfolio of healthcare facilities.

Debtor/Borrower Representation:

• A Joint Venture Of Young Woo and Urban Muse LLC in connection with the restructuring of its senior mortgage and mezzanine construction loans with respect to 200 Eleventh Avenue, a high-end residential condominium development project in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
• Colony Capital, LLC in connection with the restructuring of certain of its gaming investments, and in connection with a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transaction with respect to an Atlantic City property.
• A Private Condo Developer in connection with the negotiation and closing of a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transaction with its lender relating to a condominium project in Connecticut.
• A Private New York-Based Real Estate Fund Operator in connection with multiple loan and limited partner equity restructurings, as well as assisting in connection with new offerings being conducted by related funds.
• Scout Real Estate Capital in connection with the restructuring of multiple existing loan arrangements and the enforcement of certain of these arrangements with a distressed lender.
• Sunrise Senior Living, Inc. in the restructuring of certain of its loan agreements and joint venture arrangements, including the restructuring of its equity and debt position in a portfolio of six Sunrise-managed senior living facilities. 

Underwriter Representation:

• The underwriters led by Deutsche Bank and Wachovia Securities in connection with several public offerings of stock and notes for Strategic Hotel Capital.
• Goldman Sachs, as underwriter, in connection with several REIT securities transactions, including public debt and equity offerings by Spieker Properties, an office and industrial REIT.
• Lehman Brothers, as underwriter, in connection with an initial public offering and follow-on offering by Boykin Hotel Properties.
• Prudential Securities, as underwriter, in connection with a follow-on offering by Columbus Realty Trust.