People

David Cox

Co-Head of PERE

David Cox is a highly regarded private equity real estate lawyer with an established practice with more than 20 years as a partner at top law firms, including White & Case LLP and King & Spalding LLP. David advises on a wide range of real estate private equity, real estate finance and real estate joint venture matters.

What we say about David

David has a deep understanding of real estate transactions and regularly advises clients, such as Real Estate private equity funds, investment banks and family offices, in connection with complex real estate transactions.

David’s 30 years of experience has given him a unique understanding and overview of all the different elements of a real estate transaction and what legal points are important for clients (and indeed, what are not so important). He can advise upon the structuring; financing; acquisition; development; refinancing; asset management; and disposal of a real estate project.

David’s practice is transactional, structuring and advisory in nature. He has experience across various asset classes such as hotels, logistics, data centres, retail, residential and offices.

He supports clients with real estate financings; senior loan originations; mezzanine financings; syndications; the financing of NPL deals and restructurings.

Examples of some transactions on which he has advised include:

• Represented Esas Holding, the largest family-owned investment firm in Turkey, in connection with various real estate investments, financings and joint ventures across Europe and the US.
• Represented EQT Exeter, a real estate investment manager, on various real estate financings of logistics sites across Europe (including Germany, France and Spain).
• Represented Iron Mountain in connection with a significant development financing of a Data Centre in Germany.
• Represented Matter Real Estate in connection with a real estate investment in Ireland.
• Represented Oaktree Capital in connection with the financing and joint venture of a NPL portfolio acquisition (with a nominal value of €900 million) secured across a Spanish residential real estate portfolio.
• Represented Blackstone Real Estate, on its US$2.7 billion acquisition of a Nordic property portfolio from funds managed by Oslo-based Obligo Investment Management AS, a global alternative investment management firm. The transaction was at the time, the largest property deal in the Nordic region since 2008.
• Represented Cerberus as the successful bidder for the Nationwide’s £1 billion UK non-performing loan portfolio, known as Project Carlisle.
• Represented Cerberus on its acquisition of a €1.5 billion European real estate loan portfolio from Lloyds Banking Group, with underlying real estate collateral in 11 countries from 23 borrowers, and a sector concentration in favour of office and industrial.
• Represented Cerberus on its financing of five shopping centres in Finland.
• Represented Starwood Capital on the sale of its interest in a 50:50 joint venture (the Great Star Partnership) with Great Portland Estates PLC (the FTSE 250 company) for £61.4 million.
• Represented Telereal Trillium on Project PRIME, one of the largest-ever real estate Private Finance Initiative transactions in the UK. This matter involved real estate and facilities management outsourcing for around 2,000 UK government premises.
• Represented Liberty Property Trust, a US based REIT in relation to a development of a mixed-use community in the UK (to include residential development, commercial buildings and community and infrastructure facilities).
• Represented BAWAG, a leading Austrian bank, on various real estate financing transactions across Europe.