For the third year in a row, we present our unique table of law firms that advised on the largest European real estate transactions over the past 12 months.
PropertyEU is proud to present its ranking of legal advisors on the largest 25 real estate transactions of 2020.
Currently in its third year, the unique league table puts the spotlight on law firms that laboured on deals which made headlines through the preceding 12 months. Not only does the ranking show which law firms had a busy year on large cap trades, it also functions as a handy catalogue of many of the biggest deals that were closed during the year.
Methodology
The list is compiled from a variety of sources.
Primarily, law firms submit details to us of deals that involved them either on the buy-side or sell-side, but typically not including advice on the finance. Where direct confirmation has not been possible, we make specific inquiries with investment managers, or failing that desk research to establish what we can. Sometimes it is not possible to include a deal due to client confidentiality but most are captured here.
Order of appearance
Clifford Chance, last year’s kingpin, comes out on top again with seven transactions, followed by Dentons and Allen & Overy on five. These firms advised on one or two further transactions that could not be included here for reasons stated above or for lack of complete information.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, GOP.it of Italy, Greenberg Traurig, and Kirkland & Ellis, and CMS are comfortably on the ranking with three transactions each. Schoenherr of Austria, BCLP, Herbert Smith Freehills, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett make it on two each.
It should be mentioned that White & Case narrowly missed out as that firm had two transactions just outside the top 25. France’s Gide Loyrette Nouel was also a narrow miss with one deal in the top 25 and one just outside of it. Almost all of the firms with two or more deals also advised on transactions marginally outside the 25.
We select the top 25 transactions by their size and note whether they are M&A transactions, entity-level investments, portfolios, or single asset trades.
The largest transaction of the year was the €5.6 bn purchase of iQ Student Accommodation by The Blackstone Group from Goldman Sachs and The Wellcome Trust on which Gowling WLG, Kirkland & Ellis, Jones Day, and Clifford Chance were advisors.
Law firms reported to us that as the corona virus suddenly broke out in March, they became involved in advising clients more on landlord-tenant and loan issues as well as government intervention programmes. But some degree of normality returned from the late summer onwards as deals began to pick up, though not anywhere near the frenetic pace of 2019. Seemingly in keeping with that, many of the very largest deals appeared to have signed or completed in the early months of 2020, presumably as carryovers from 2019.
As one might expect in a year fraught with Covid-19, the table of deals reflects smaller transactions than the previous year. In 2019, the threshold for a top 25 European transaction was €880 mln, whereas in 2020 it is €526 mln - a significantly lower hurdle.
The ranking was compiled as of 7 December and the full list appears in the December 2020 issue of PropertyEU.
For more on how the year went for Europe's leading law firms, read the interview with Greenberg Traurig.
