Bringing New Dimensions to Global Commercial Real Estate

Our Real Estate Group continues to occupy a unique leadership position in global commercial real estate. Our areas of expertise extend well beyond traditional real estate matters and include bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, corporate governance, financial institutions, M&A, private equity, securities, structured finance, professional sports-related transactions and complex restructuring of family-owned businesses and assets. Significant matters have included representing:

• Whitehall Street Global Real Estate Limited Partnership 2005 and its subsidiary W2005 Puppet II B.V. in an agreement with an affiliate of Host Hotels Limited to dispose of six hotels in continental Europe, which currently are owned and operated by Whitehall but managed by Marriott. The hotels that Whitehall is selling include the Renaissance Paris Vendôme Hotel, the Renaissance Paris La Défense Hotel, the Courtyard Paris Defense West-Colombes Hotel, the Marriott Paris Rive Gauche, the Courtyard Düsseldorf Hotel and the Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel.
  
  
• Pershing Square Capital Management in its three-part $177 million financing of Borders Group, Inc., which included providing $42.5 million term loan facility to Borders Group, the offer to purchase certain of Borders Group’s international businesses for an aggregate cash price of $135 million, and Borders Group’s issuance of warrants to Pershing Square for shares of common stock that, if exercised at full price, would increase Pershing Square’s stake in Borders Group from 18 percent to 33.6 percent.
  
  
• Issuers and underwriters in significant equity and debt offerings by a number of real estate investment trusts (REITs), including HCP, Sunstone Hotel Investors, Anworth Mortgage Asset Corporation and Regency Centers Corporation.

In recent years, S&C has also advised clients on the restructuring of multiple troubled investments, including the workout or enforcement of several CMBS and other real estate loans on several large casino, healthcare and hotel companies. The Firm also has extensive experience in the formation, fund-raising and ongoing representation of Real Estate Investment Funds operating domestically and internationally.