Many large law firms are focusing their finance practices in the capital markets and corporate finance areas and have reduced or eliminated their real estate finance practice groups.  In contrast, Bryan Cave has maintained its commitment to representing lenders in a wide variety of real estate secured transactions and has established the Real Estate Finance Team to coordinate these efforts in order to fill the role as international, national or regional counsel to our lending clients in all aspects of real estate finance law.

Bryan Cave’s Real Estate Finance Team represents a variety of institutional lenders, such as banks, savings banks, insurance companies and business finance companies, in the extension of commercial credit. We focus on providing strategic and day-to-day counsel on the complex legal, business, regulatory and technical issues that confront lenders and have a track record of representing lenders with diverse real estate portfolios throughout the world.

Our history and service in this area has led to the development of a set of principles that we believe yields a healthy and productive relationship with our clients, including:

• Measured use of technology to enhance the quality and timeliness of the work product delivered.
• Use of lawyers in the geographic location where the transaction or client location dictates.
• Serious budgeting and consideration of fee pricing alternatives at the front end of the transaction.
• Availability of experienced professionals at all phases of the transaction (e.g. environmental, intellectual property, securities, real estate, estate planning, bankruptcy/restructuring).
• Frequent communication with our clients, through seminars, publications and meetings with the business leaders, on how trends and anticipated changes in the legal, regulatory and business market might impact their lending programs.

Representative Transactions

• Representation of the lender, seller, master servicer and special servicer in connection with the origination and securitization/sale of over $2.5 billion in mortgage loans in more than 20 publicly registered commercial mortgage-backed securities transactions and numerous Fannie Mae swap transactions and whole loan sale transactions.
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $96 million syndicated credit facility to finance the construction of the first new high-rise office building in Los Angeles, California  in the past 20 years, involving two syndicate banks, four participant banks and two levels of mezzanine debt.
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $600 million syndicated credit facility to provide land acquisition and development funds for a commercial real estate developer with projects in 18 states.
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $181 million land, building and project loan to finance the construction of a multi-family residential building with ground floor retail space in Manhattan.
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $150 million syndicated credit facility to provide land acquisition and development and home construction funds for a commercial real estate developer with projects throughout Texas.
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $75 million syndicated credit facility to finance the redevelopment of an historic apartment property in San Francisco, California.
• Representation of the lender in three separate transactions totaling $365 million for the financing of three condominium projects in Miami Beach, Florida.
• Representation of the lender in a $165 million financing for the largest retirement and golf course development in the Palm Springs, California area, involving a revolving line of credit, unsecured debt, public financing and subordinated financing.
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $125 million syndicated credit facility for a major Western States home developer.
• Representation of the lender in a $60 million financing for the development of the former Chevron drilling site in Huntington Beach, California. 
• Representation of the Administrative Agent in a $100 million syndicated credit facility to provide working capital for a commercial real estate developer. 
• Representation of the lender in a $99 million financing secured by 142 retail stores in 16 states.
• Representation of the lender in a $152 million sale/lease-back transaction for 83 convenience stores and gasoline stations in four states.

If you would like more information about Bryan Cave’s Real Estate Finance Team, please call any of our team leaders, Ren Hayhurst at 949-223-7125 or John Parks at 404-572-6783.