Headline Deals: Ashurst takes lead for Commerzbank and Morrisons

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Ashurst is leading on two headline deals announced this week as Germany’s Commerzbank enters talks to sell a £4bn UK loan portfolio and Wm Morrisons signed a potentially market changing agreement with online grocer Ocado.

The top 15 UK firm is advising longstanding client Commerzbank on the proposed sale of its Eurohypo UK operation to US bank Wells Fargo and private equity group Lone Star. If the deal goes ahead it is reported to be one of the largest disposals of real estate debt by a European bank since the start of the financial crisis. Continue reading “Headline Deals: Ashurst takes lead for Commerzbank and Morrisons”

What credit crunch? – Forsters gives reporting season a boost with 16% hike in revenues

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Europe may be stuck in the doldrums and the UK property market mired in a five-year slump but no one seems to have told West End boutique Forsters, which posted a revenue rise of 16% in its latest financial year.

Total fee income at the 120-lawyer firm grew to £32.5m for the 2012/13 year, up from £28m, while profits increased 11%. Profits per equity partner (PEP) rose 6% to £431,000 from £392,000 in 2012, while earnings per partner grew 3% to £308,000.

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Adrian de Souza – Land Securities

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Adrian de Souza

General counsel

Land Securities

 

As a relative newcomer to the property world, for general counsel Adrian de Souza the past few years have been all about finding his feet in the business he joined back in 2010. De Souza was tasked with cutting down the number of firms that Land Securities regularly works with. He has successfully reduced the number from 25 firms to eight, although the company used to have around 100 firms on its roster.

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Real estate – In The House

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In the first of a series of looks at the UK’s top in-house lawyers, LB profiles a few GCs who are turning heads in the property market

There was a time when private practice lawyers looked down their noses at their in-house counterparts. The logic went that in-housers had swapped the fat fees of private practice for an easier life that would let them get home in time for tea. But not anymore. Over the past few years, the role of the in-house lawyer has grown from taking a back seat to outside counsel to becoming the true powerbrokers in their respective fields. 

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Qatari Diar Panel – The In Crowd

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Qatari Diar is a trophy client for any firm with property or Middle East pretensions: being in the property company’s good books means working on some of the most prestigious real estate and finance deals across the world. Since it began life seven years ago, The Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company (known to panel firms simply as ‘QD’) has battled with the Candy brothers, financed London’s newest skyscraper the ‘Shard’ and even purchased the US Embassy’s old building in Mayfair. It now has 49 projects with a combined value of $35bn under development or planning in 20 countries around the world.

And to the delight of a handpicked few, the real estate investment company finalised its first-ever law firm panel in March, with 13 different firms making the cut onto one of the six sub-panels (see box, ‘The chosen ones, page 2). Continue reading “Qatari Diar Panel – The In Crowd”

Austria part 1 – staying out of trouble

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Austria has proven to be an economic safe haven in the past few years, but the troublesome CEE countries are still playing on lawyers’ minds.

A favourite topic of conversation around the dinner table for wealthy Viennese is the astronomical price of apartments in the centre of town. They bemoan how rich Russians are coming in and snapping up the grand, high-ceilinged apartments on the imposing avenue that circles the centre of town, the Ringstraße. The Russians, they say, like the climate and the genteel lifestyle that Vienna offers, and will pay almost anything to get these apartments.

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