Acquisitions, Dispositions & Institutional Investments

Successful real estate transactions demand skill, speed, and attention to business, financial, and legal details. Clients look to our team of real estate advisors to bring value to each transaction and to protect their investments.

HOW WE HELP

Seyfarth attorneys serve as trusted advisors in real estate acquisition and disposition transactions involving core, core-plus, value-add, and ground-up development properties to some of the largest public and private pension funds, insurance companies, REITs, private equity firms, and foreign and other institutional investors.

We not only represent these investors, but also represent joint ventures in which they are the majority member. We add value to complex transactions for these clients by offering creative advice from our bench of seasoned experts. In the case of private investors and family offices, in particular, we bring inside knowledge of the current market to add value to the transaction. Our lawyers have helped clients buy and sell properties ranging from multi-billion dollar national retail portfolios to single location office buildings or industrial sites, including ground-up developments.

We know the nuances of commercial real estate deals across a wide variety of property types, including: office, retail, industrial, health care, senior living, multifamily, and mixed-use facilities. We have extensive experience with specialty-use properties such as data centers and sports and entertainment properties, too. These transactions often touch upon ancillary areas such as environmental, construction, tax, corporate, labor, and employment issues. We have strong experience in each of these areas, and seamlessly integrate those team members into our transactions.

Our national team routinely represents clients in their acquisitions and dispositions of income-producing and development properties, and also regularly represents institutional investors in organizing and planning co-investments, joint ventures, and private and public REITs. We partner with our clients in evaluating the fit of investments within their strategy and legal limitations, provide guidance on fiduciary issues as affected by ERISA, state pension codes and regulations, and ERISA standards, advise on unrelated business taxable income (for those funds which are UBTI sensitive), and when applicable, REIT compliance rules and structure investments for foreign investors to minimize exposure to US laws, including tax laws.

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

We are proud of our long list of decade-old clients who trust us. We believe that those relationships have stood the test of time because of our partnering nature and investment in understanding our clients’ businesses. Our aim is to deliver excellence in each transaction and to provide a core team of attorneys on whom you can rely. In some cases, Seyfarth is brought in to evaluate previously negotiated deals by other firms—identifying missed opportunities for tax refunds or ways to restructure deals to avoid state and local tax implications. Our goal is to provide more than just common routine representations, but rather, find solutions that provide the best results for our clients to accomplish its goals.

Due Diligence Hub. For larger portfolio acquisition transactions we bring in Seyfarth’s Due Diligence Hub, a dedicated team of attorneys, paralegals, and support staff who handle the cumbersome, cost-sensitive work associated with the due diligence phase of acquisitions. We offer a variety of services, including review of title, survey, REAs, zoning, and lease abstracting, performed by highly-skilled and experienced reviewers. By focusing exclusively on the due diligence phase of commercial transactions, we can offer customized, efficient due diligence services and the highest-quality work product, while allowing for cost predictability. The flexible structure of the team allows them to scale staffing as needed, based on the timeline and volume of the assignment, and the client’s budgetary concerns.