About

Team size: Three

Major legal advisers: Jones Day, BCLP, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, CMS, Penningtons Manches Cooper

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last year?

Thankfully we’ve had no litigation, but the team here has assisted the business on several large high value client investment transactions in the UK and EMEA during a time when real estate transaction volumes have dropped due to Covid.

What were the main difficulties your company faced during the initial Covid lockdown?

As a real estate investment manager for institutional capital, we have had to deal with the impact of lockdown on our occupiers and investors. Occupiers haven’t been able to, or have refused to, pay rent and the moratorium has restricted our rights to enforce. The high street and leisure and hospitality sectors have been severely impacted and many tenants have either gone bust or entered into CVAs. Our investors still have to meet their operating and financing costs, and often we’ve had to negotiate with the banks on loan covenants.

Developments have also been impacted by the effects on workforce and supply chain and this has had a knock-on effect on the financing of the developments. Many sellers have refrained from coming to the market so our ability to buy has been reduced. Conversely, when selling, many buyers have sought to price chip. Also, there have been major impacts on our own workforce and operations.

The explosion in home working has been one of the major changes to work life brought about by the lockdown. How did you facilitate this change, and was this a challenge?

Ours is a people business – liaising with our investor clients, their tenants and the market counterparties to whom we sell, and from whom we buy, property. More importantly, working as a team with our colleagues and advisers is essential to executing every transaction we undertake. As a legal function, we have had to advise on how we operate from our homes in line with government guidance and health and safety law, or how we safely operate back in the office in between lockdowns. All this is in conjunction with practical issues, such as how we execute the high volume of legal documents that traditionally require wet ink execution in the presence of a witness.

There have been a number of legislative changes in response to Covid. Have these benefited your company or had any other interesting effects?

The rationale for a moratorium against those who cannot pay their rents, as opposed to those who have chosen not to, is well understood, but the moratorium’s impact has presented some understandable challenges to landlords. Its effects will be felt long after the moratorium is lifted.