Commercial property: corporate occupiers

Partner

Partner, Head of Real Estate UK/EMEA

Melanie leads the Property Group and deals with all aspects of real estate specialising in high end residential for both resident and offshore clients. She acts for a number of well-known individuals and family offices, often working closely with the firm’s Private Capital and Reputation Protection teams.Melanie deals with Landlord and Tenant matters, acting mainly for occupiers in the retail and fashion/luxury brands, restaurants, cinema, theatre, media and digital/tech sectors. The matters are often complex involving multiple parties and commercial elements.She also Co-Heads the firm's Retail & Fashion Group where she advises clients on all aspects of their bricks and mortar property requirements from acquisitions of flagship stores to management of store portfolios country wide and including within centres and outlets such as Westfield and Bicester Village. She also acquires head office premises for retail/fashion and Tech clients and has assisted in major architecture designed fit outs of both retail and office premises.Her clients include LW Theatres/Really Useful Group, Gordon Ramsay. Victoria Beckham Limited, Roland Mouret, Wolford, Network Homes Ltd, Kobalt Music Group, Empire Holding/Arch Light Cinemas (at Battersea Power Station) and ultra-high net worth individuals.

Sarah has been a real estate lawyer in the City of London for over 20 years and acts for investors and developers, landlords and tenants across the full property life cycle – acquiring, developing, selling and occupying commercial and development properties. She has particular expertise handling significant investment transactions and advising professional service firms, corporates, charities and retail occupiers on their property strategies.

Partner

Head of Burges Salmon's cross-departmental Real Estate Sector Group, having led the firm's Real Estate department for five years between 2009 and 2014. Richard advises investors, developers and occupiers with a particular focus on the office, industrial and logistics, and retail sectors, leading teams undertaking portfolio asset management work and acting on major transactional property investment acquisitions and disposals. Richard also specialises in major mixed use and residential led development and regeneration projects.

Senior Partner and Co-Founder

Partner

Teresa is head of Bristows’ real estate practice and has many years’ experience as a commercial real estate specialist. Teresa’s broad practice involves advisory as well as transactional work relating to all aspects of real estate for UK and international businesses. Her clients span a diverse range of industry sectors including life sciences, businesses involved in innovative technologies and retail. Her focus on understanding her client’s sector and business is key to delivering results. She acts for commercial occupiers and investors as well as on corporate acquisitions and disposals, development projects and portfolio management. A significant proportion of her work relates to matters arising from the landlord and tenant relationship.In addition to her commercial practice she also has considerable experience in advising charities, not-for-profit organisations and learned institutions in relation to their occupational and investment assets. Her clients in this sector include some of the UK’s pre-eminent professional bodies.Teresa is a member and on the committee of the Commercial Real Estate Legal Association (CRELA) and is also a member of the Charity Law Association. She is a regular public speaker to industry groups and a contributor to leading real estate publication, Estates Gazette.

Partner; Jane is head of the real estate team. She advises in relation to all aspects of real estate including acquisitions, disposals, development, planning, leasing, financing and the real estate aspects of corporate transactions. Jane is qualified in England and Wales and in Scotland. Jane is one of the firm’s diversity and inclusion partners and is also a sponsoring partner for Collaborate, the firm’s legal tech programme.

Partner: Rachel has a focus upon providing real estate services to corporate occupiers and developers and has a particular insight into clients’ needs and expectations on service delivery having worked in-house on secondment as legal counsel to a listed projects/construction company. She has experience in handling large global real estate portfolios dealing with multiple moves from multiple locations, working in partnership with clients’ real estate consultants.  

Suzanne specialises in advising commercial property occupiers and investors, particularly office, retail and telecommunications premises. Her expertise includes advice to high net worth individuals on investment in and disposal of properties in the UK, both residential and commercial. She represents business occupiers on new premises and the structuring of existing property portfolios, and acts for occupiers and investors in the acquisition, management and disposal of properties. Suzanne also advises developers on complex site acquisitions.

Partner

Chris Harvey is a partner in Mayer Brown's London office and head of the Real Estate Investment Team. Chris has extensive experience of acting for investors, funds, property companies, banks and developers in all kinds of investment, development and finance transactions. In particular, Chris has extensive experience of acting for Asian, US and European investors investing into the UK real estate market. Chris joined Mayer Brown in 2012 and was recently nominated by Times Online as one of the top ten future stars of the City.

Partner

Partner; John has considerable experience in a wide range of real estate work. He has acted extensively on acquisitions and disposals of all types of property interests, on significant development projects and on major lettings.

Dion has been a real estate partner at Hogan Lovells for 16 years. He likes to stay close to the asset where he can add value to the deal. He likes to break down complexity in a way that can be easily understood. He likes to work with, not against, the deal counterparties to get the deal done pragmatically (and for everybody to come away feeling as if the deal has worked for them all).

As a senior partner in the firm’s Real Estate Department, Patrick has considerable experience in real estate transactions, advising investors, developers, lenders and tenants on all aspects of commercial real estate in the UK. Patrick has advised on numerous international real estate projects on behalf of listed real estate companies, sovereign wealth funds and investment banks in Asia, the Middle East and Continental Europe. Patrick also has specialist expertise in hotel and leisure properties, including management and franchise agreements. Patrick was seconded to the firm’s Hong Kong and Frankfurt offices, and has worked in Australia as a corporate lawyer for a major Australian law firm. Work highlights Throughout his career, Patrick has led on many of the market’s major commercial real estate transactions. Highlights include advising: a major US corporate on the acquisition and the development of an iconic new European HQ in London Ramsbury on the acquisition of the Debenhams store, Oxford Street, and the former Dickins & Jones building on Regent Street, London a major European bank on the development of its new London HQ a major US investment bank on the development of its new European HQ InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) on the sale and manage back of a portfolio of Holiday Inn hotels in the UK, the market’s first major sale and manage back transaction HSBC on its sale and leaseback at Canary Wharf the Safra family on its acquisition of Plantation Place, London Allied London on the development, leasing and subsequent investment sales at Spinningfields, Manchester Linklaters on its own UK and global premises strategy

Partner; acting in substantial commercial sales and purchases and leases; high-value residential conveyancing for offshore clients.

Partner

Rick is ranked as a leading individual in London for corporate occupier representation. He acts for international and UK clients on their UK real estate requirements. He has extensive experience in acting for global corporates, international investment and sovereign wealth funds, investment companies and ultra-high net worth individuals. His expertise covers a number of asset classes from City offices to portfolio management and hotel and leisure investment, financing and development. Rick heads of the firm’s Hotels and Leisure practice group and sits on the firms Executive and International Committees.

Iain is a partner in the Real Estate practice of the London office. His experience covers a wide variety of commercial property work, including property development and finance, corporate transactions, property management for investment funds and general transactional work and gains praise from notable clients. He has recently assisted in a number of large investment transactions.

General commercial property work with particular emphasis on landlord and tenant work in the leisure sector.

Partner

Alex is a Partner in the Real Estate practice and is based in our London office. He has a broad range of commercial property experience including investment property and portfolio acquisitions and disposals. Alex has acted on development acquisitions and disposals including turnkey development and funding agreements. He is active in asset management for institutional investors and also deals with all aspects of commercial lettings, having had experience acting for high profile occupiers/operators. Alex has experience of dealing with property aspects relating to insolvency, corporate recovery work and other corporate and restructuring transactions and also with investment and development finance transactions relating to real estate.

Partner

Tim has a broad range of transactional commercial real estate experience acting for clients ranging from institutional investors and blue chip technology companies to high net worth private individuals.Tim has a particular focus on the office, retail and leisure sectors and frequently advises on occupier side transactions. His recent real estate experience includes: Advising a global food hall brand on the acquisition of an anchor tenancy within the re-developed retail areas of London Waterloo train station. Acting for a joint venture vehicle in relation to the disposal of a portfolio of investment properties for a total consideration in excess of £110m. Advising a high net worth individual on the acquisition and development of a multi-let city centre industrial building and conversion to student accommodation use. Acting on behalf of a multinational technology business on the acquisition of a new London HQ with an annual rent in excess of £2.5m.

Commercial Property Lawyer

Karli has over 10 years’ experience in all aspects of commercial property transactions and her work includes acquisitions and disposals for a range of clients including charities and investors as well as dealing with all aspects of landlord and tenant and property management work. Karli also deals with secured lending transactions advising both borrowers and lenders and has also advised developers on the acquisition of sites subject to planning permission.

Jamie is a partner in the Real Estate department acting for commercial, charity and private clients in all aspects of transactions involving commercial property, having extensive experience of advising on technical aspects of charity property law, including legacies and trusts. Additionally, Jamie has corporate property transaction experience including amalgamations, mergers and asset sales and purchases, as well as residential property experience. Jamie also advises residential tenancies and public sector spin out transactions.  

Partner

Liam advises on all aspects of commercial real estate including data centre (acquisition/disposal, development and management), real estate investment acquisitions and disposals, development, hotel and leisure, retail, real estate finance and management of investment portfolios. He has particular expertise in advising on all aspects relating to data centres including acting for operators, developers and occupiers and has acted as interim in-house general counsel for the leading large-scale, carrier neutral data centre provider in Europe and Asia-Pacific. His clients include a number of data centre providers and investors, hotel chains, mixed use developers, property investors, high end retailers and restaurant groups. Liam is named as a Next Generation Partner in Legal 500 and is described as having "a very good understanding of the commercial challenges facing the property market, and his advice is tailored to resolving the commercial issues" as well as being “a valued business partner." He regularly contributes to trade and legal press having articles published in Data Center Dynamics, Data Europe and Data Center Solutions, as well as contributing to industry reports such at the BroadGroup.

Partner (Real Estate)

Senior Associate

Providing clear, practical and commercial advice, Gemma is an experienced member of the real estate team, with a broad practice across all aspects of commercial property work but with a particular focus on acquisitions/disposal, asset management and corporate occupier work. Gemma has represented a diverse range of clients – working with institutional investors and funds, charitable bodies as well as corporate occupiers ranging from small start-ups acquiring their first leased premises to HQ relocations for large multinational organisations. She has particular exposure advising US companies entering the UK market. Gemma routinely works with our corporate and tax departments to ensure clients receive a complete service and has published a number of articles in Estates Gazette. Highlights of 2018 include: Acting for a multinational tech company in consolidating its employees into single London premises which involved advising on the early exit of surplus premises and re-gearing the terms of, and expanding, its primary office space Acting for several US tech companies expanding into the UK market Advising a Chinese tech company on its UK real estate interests, including a pre-let of a bespoke multi-use HQ facility.

Andrea is a senior associate in the Property department at Payne Hicks Beach.  She specialises in commercial landlord and tenant work and the sale and purchase of commercial and residential properties.  She advises substantial private companies and individuals, based in the UK and overseas.