About

A major international mixed real estate developer, Ceetrus is also a subsidiary of French multinational retail group Auchan Holding. Ceetrus act as a global urban player who meets people and territories need to animate communities and places. It is supported by an extremely well-qualified legal team is split across France and Luxembourg and headed by Ulrich Lepoutre. The legal team, composed of 25 people, is made up of 19 real estate lawyers, two digital law, innovation, IT and data lawyers and four corporate and M&A lawyers organised along both customer and competency lines. This allows a comprehensive legal response to any emerging company issues. Lepoutre explains that the ability for team lawyers to be organised on both competency and customer bases means that the team’s work is always interesting and allows for greater professional development by developing a more complex portfolio. The team’s performance, along with its keen business sense, has led to extremely strong ties being developed with other business units, allowing most legal work to be kept in-house, which in turn leads to exponential improvement in the Ceetrus legal team’s abilities. Perhaps the team’s most notable success is that of having won the contest of the transformation of the Gare du Nord for the 2024 Olympic (StatioNord), although it has been successful in a number of other projects, including the realisation of several asset deals. It has also recently opened the Promenade de Flandre shopping center in Roncq in the North of France. Lepoutre is clear that alignment with company goals and a keen desire to get deals done are key elements Ceetrus legal department’s internal team culture, and at the core of the reasons for its success.