Real Estate

Joel H. Rothstein is an international real estate and structured finance lawyer. He leads Greenberg Traurig’s real estate practice in Asia where he serves as Chair of the Asia Real Estate Practice. Based in Tokyo, he splits his time across the firm’s offices in Asia where he advises investment banks, financial institutions, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, real estate developers, and investors across all major Asia markets and across all key asset classes. He also leads the firm’s practice in advising Asia-based outbound cross-border investors in structuring, implementing, and managing equity and debt investments into the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Whether Joel is advising a United States-based private equity fund in structuring a tokutei mokuteki kaisha (TMK) in Japan for a landmark Tokyo office building investment, a European-based insurance company in forming a Sino-foreign joint venture for a logistics facilities portfolio in China, a Singapore-based fund sponsor in creating an offshore fund targeting data center assets in the United States, or a Korea-based asset management company in extending a mezzanine loan secured by a portfolio of hotel and high end retail assets across Europe, clients rely upon the deep experience he brings to cross-border deals. Joel offers clients knowledge of optimal legal and tax structures for cross-border deals, the ability to navigate complex governmental reviews and approvals relating to foreign investment, an understanding of the complexity and timing of repatriating investment capital through multiple jurisdictions, and practical knowledge of local market practices and procedures required to get a deal done.

With more than 25 years of experience in Asia, Joel has structured, documented, and implemented a number of landmark transactions and investment programs in the region, including the first rating agency rated commercial mortgaged-backed securities transaction in Japan, the first non-performing loan securitization transactions completed in Japan and in South Korea, the first comingled USD/RMB real estate fund sponsored by a Chinese financial institution, and the first international style non-recourse real estate loans by financial institutions in both Japan and China. In the Asia outbound investment market into United States and Euopean real estate, he has advised in transactions valued in excess of 12 billion U.S. Dollars, ranging from acquisitions and dispositions, to financing, to strategic joint ventures, to fund investments, across all major asset classes and markets in the United States and Europe.

A New York native, in addition to practicing law, Joel is an urban designer whose work prior to becoming an attorney included numerous architecture and urban design projects around the world, from Cartagena, Colombia, South America to Hoboken, New Jersey.

Concentrations Real estate venture formation and complex cross-border joint ventures Fund vehicle formation and management Real estate finance including senior, mezzanine and preferred equity structures Asset securitization and secondary trading of loan assets Non-performing loan (NPL) and hard asset portfolio acquisitions and dispositions Property acquisitions and dispositions Real estate equity and debt capital markets, including REITs Asset and property management Leasing, franchising, servicing, and operation agreements Construction and development Data center development, operations and finance Hotel and resort finance, development, and management Infrastructure projects and public-private partnerships

Member, Urban Land Institute (ULI) Former Board Member, ULI Japan Council Member, Asia Pacific Real Estate Association Member, Commercial Real Estate Finance Council Member, Asia Pacific Loan Market Association Member, Asia Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles (ANREV)

Shareholder, Chair of Asia Real Estate Practice

J.D., New York University School of Law Editor, New York University Review of Law and Social Change M.S., Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation B.A., magna cum laude, University of California, Los Angeles Phi Beta Kappa