The Linklaters real estate group has a broad scope and brings ‘vast experience and expertise,’ to M&A, joint ventures, investment and development projects, real estate finance, public procurement and much more. Practice head Yves Moreau  is ‘a legal legend – very professional and solution-driven’. For project finance, Pieter Puelinckx and managing associate Lothar Van Driessche have ‘experience and a pragmatic approach’. Counsel France Englebert focuses predominantly on the hotel sector.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • 'Real estate team has a vast experience and expertise, is oriented to solve problems, is fast, always reachable and available, knows their clients, great transaction team.'

  • 'Yves Moreau and his team are excellent advisors.'

  • 'Very experienced, very good lawyers.'

  • ‘In-depth knowledge of the project finance business.’

  • ‘The experience and pragmatic approach of Pieter Peulinckx and Lothar Van Driessche’

  • ‘Professional, commercial (thinking with the business), available, multilingual, cross-border team with high knowledge of the real estate market.’

  • ‘Very accessible and efficient.’

  • ‘Very high-level team with a large scope of work, from real estate leasing, to capital markets transactions, including litigation. Good mix of senior and junior lawyers - very efficient organization.’

Key clients

  • Cofinimmo
  • Befimmo
  • CBRE Investment Management
  • Ageas / AG Insurance / AG Real Estate
  • McDonald’s Restaurants Belgium
  • La Française Real Estate Managers
  • IRET
  • John Cockerill
  • Solvay
  • Ineos
  • Weerts Group
  • Macquarie
  • Baltissimmo

Work highlights

  • Advising La Française Real Estate Managers on the divestment of a group of Luxembourg and Belgian companies, of which two are B-REIFs (FIIS/GVBF), owned by Korean (Hyundai Investments) and French (LF Europimmo) investors, to Green Real Estate FundComm.V., a fund managed by Whitewood in which the Federal Holding and Investment Company (SFPI-FPIM), i.e. Belgium’s “Sovereign Wealth Fund”, is participating, owning together two office buildings in Brussels, headquarters to Engie.
  • Fedimmo, subsidiary of the Belgian Real-Estate Investment Trust (SIR-GVV) Befimmo: advising on the divestment of a portfolio of twenty-five properties, having a combined surface area of around 115,000m², to Downtown Real Estate and Straco. The properties are or were formerly let to several Federal Public Services.
  • AG Insurance and Incresco, represented by AG Real Estate: advising on the divestment of six nursing and care home properties located in the Flemish and Brussels regions through a combination of share deals and asset deals to Healthcare Activos Yield SOCIMI S.A., for whom this constituted the first investment in Belgium.

Lawyers

Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Yves Moreau

Other key lawyers

Pieter Puelinckx, France Englebert, Lothar Van Driessche, Lieve Swartenbroux