Travers Smith LLP has announced today the recruitment of Alex Millar as a partner in its Real Estate practice. Alex joins the firm from Jones Day, where he was a partner for eight years.
Alex Millar has extensive experience representing clients in high-value commercial real estate transactions with a particular focus on development and regeneration projects. During his career he has advised British Land, CBRE Global Investment Partners, Delancey / DV4, LondonMetric and others. Examples of his recent experience include acting for:
- DV4 on the regeneration of Elephant & Castle in London.
- CBRE Global Investment Partners in relation to the establishment of a £1 billion 22 asset joint venture with Prologis UK in relation to the Prologis UK development land bank.
- DV4 in connection with the formation of a £1.4 billion joint venture with APG Asset Management NV and Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company to create a home rental business in London.
- Antirion SGR in relation to the acquisition of 50 percent of Brookfield's Principal Place development as the new Amazon HQ in London.
Simon Rutman, Head of Travers Smith’s Real Estate Department commented: “We are delighted to welcome Alex to our team. He is a leading real estate lawyer with an excellent reputation acting on complex real estate investment and development transactions. His experience, skillset and client base perfectly complement our practice and will add further depth to advice we provide to clients."
The Travers Smith Real Estate Department offers clients the full service across the life-cycle of their real estate investments, including planning, construction, dispute resolution, tax structuring, environmental, operational risk and real estate finance expertise.
The team, led by Head of Department Simon Rutman, acts for a number of real estate funds and active management real estate investors including Clearbell Capital, Impact Healthcare, Lothbury Investment Trust, Mansford Capital, Patron Capital, Warburg HIH Global and Westrock, as well as infrastructure investors such as Brookfield and Macquarie. As a result of its client focus, the team has recently advised on a range transactions across the office, retail, healthcare, leisure, renewable energy, private rental, student accommodation and infrastructure sectors.
Recent highlight transactions include advising:
- Impact Healthcare REIT plc in connection with its initial public offering and successful fundraising of £160 million. This was only the second IPO in the UK of a REIT specialising in care homes.
- Bridgepoint on its acquisition of house-builder Miller Homes from funds managed by GSO Capital Partners.
- Patron Capital on the sale of specialist neuro disability care provider The Badby Group to Elysium Healthcare, the specialist mental healthcare provider backed by BC Partners.
- Safestore Holdings plc on the acquisition of Stork Self Storage (Holdings) Limited (trading as Alligator Self Storage) from a company controlled by funds managed and advised by York Capital Management.
- intu on the refinancing of the intu Trafford Centre.
- Micro Focus on the real estate aspects of its merger with Hewlett Packard Enterprises' software business, which required the assignment of 200 properties globally.
The Travers Smith Real Estate team, which currently comprises around 30 real estate lawyers, has been steadily growing. In the last few years, the firm promoted two real estate lawyers, Emma Pereira and Paul Kenny, to its partnership. Alex Millar's arrival is a further demonstration of the strategic investment Travers Smith is making in its real estate capability in response to client demand.