Real Estate

RMP’s team has decades of significant global real estate investment and finance experience. Well-versed in tax, securities, environmental, and other legal issues that impact both transaction structuring and property operations, we have counseled buyers, sellers, and financiers of single assets as well as entire portfolios of real estate. Our extensive real estate experience covers nearly every continent and a wide variety of asset classes including office, retail, hospitality, mixed-use, multi-family, warehouse, and student housing.

Our international practice extends to the representation of investors and financiers working with assets located in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia – as well as non-U.S. investors in U.S. markets. Our lawyers have established numerous real estate joint ventures and partnerships, and innovated both residential and commercial mortgage financing and investment products. We also handle restructurings and recapitalizations of U.S.-domestic and cross-border pooled investment vehicles focused on real property. We work with local lawyers and title companies who undertake all matters of title transfer and validity.

Finance

RMP’s attorneys have capably advised financial institutions, issuers, borrowers, and investors with a diverse array of plain vanilla and cutting-edge transactions, including acquisition and working capital facilities, warehouse and table fundings, and structured financings. The firm’s lawyers have also counseled issuers, underwriters, and investors in capital markets transactions involving both the private and public issuance of equity, debt, and innovative sukuk instruments.

We offer significant experience with complex, cross-border transactions. We have designed unique global financial products, such as trade finance programs for use in sub-Saharan Africa, commercial mortgage backed securitization assets that follow Islamic principles, and global real estate development partnerships.

Private Client

We have decades of collective experience advising on a range of highly-sensitive matters, including U.S.-domestic and cross-border wealth transfer, asset protection, and succession structures, income tax compliance (including FATCA) and planning, philanthropic partnerships, and pre-immigration or expatriation planning. We have handled these matters for entrepreneurs and executives as well as investment managers, trust companies, insurance companies, family offices, and a variety of expert consultants and advisors.

Examples of the projects that RMP team members have advised on include:

  • compensation arrangements for globally mobile executives
  • collective or pooled family or closely-held investment vehicles
  • derivative and complex securities creation and management
  • private plane and helicopter acquisition, financing and management
  • art and collectibles acquisition, disposition, insurance and preservation
  • reviewing and modifying legacy planning and structures, and
  • real estate acquisition, disposition, and development (including properties used for personal residences, commercial rental, timberland, farms, ranches as well as land held for development).

Strategy & Structure

Providing strategic advice is an integral part of our services. By adhering to the 'measure twice, cut once' philosophy, RMP delivers coherent, swift, and integrated execution. Our approach relies on a thoughtful combination of comprehensive legal and enterprise analysis.

Once we enter a client's circle of trusted advisors, we help them analyze ambitions, not only in the context of specific transactions, but in view of their principles and broader business, personal, and family goals. The legal frameworks that result from our strategic guidance align with the best practices of leading global accounting, banking, and consulting advisors.

Tax

Our tax practice brings years of experience to each engagement, with the goal of creative and value-added solutions, often working hand in hand together with our Private Client practice. Our lawyers’ experience in the business and corporate tax arena has included:

  • tax-free and taxable acquisitions, leveraged buy-outs, spin-offs, and dispositions, often with cross-border components
  • corporate finance and funding transactions, recapitalizations and leasing transactions;
  • private real estate investment trusts (REITs)
  • partnerships, LLCs, joint ventures and disregarded entities in a variety of unusual contexts and industry sectors
  • nonjudicial restructurings
  • private equity and hedge fund transactions
  • international tax planning, including transfer pricing, foreign tax credits, and advance pricing agreements
  • tax accounting, including capitalization, cost recovery, mark-to-market, and accounting method change questions
  • advising tax-exempt and nonprofit organizations on a wide range of matters, including obtaining exemption determinations, private letter rulings, and other guidance from the IRS, and
  • regulatory compliance, including IRS special programs such as pre-filing agreements and fast-track resolutions.

Corporate and M&A

Companies, sponsors, investors, founders, and executives rely upon RMP to provide experienced, responsive advice on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. We have almost a century of combined legal and business experience that enables us to guide clients through the relevant issues that arise in M&A transactions. Our M&A practice includes advising on going private and spin-off/carve-out transactions, control- and minority-investments, and tender- and exchange-offers.

We also represent financial sponsors and other buyers and investors with leveraged buyouts, growth equity investments, and venture capital transactions. Our lawyers are adept at both stock and asset acquisitions as well as entity mergers and the myriad of related tax issues. We perform in-depth legal due diligence, counsel on effective corporate governance, advise on domestic and international tax planning, and negotiate definitive documentation.

Our extensive familiarity with developed and emerging markets and cross-border transactions, coupled with our ability to offer a distinct blend of U.S., English, and (through trusted global associate firms) local law insights, provides our clients with unique perspectives into legal implications and market conditions.

Outside General Counsel

We understand that entrepreneurs, well-established companies, and family offices must balance legal constraints with business obligations. As outside general counsel, we bring our deep legal experience to focus on a client's culture, values, and business model. Utilizing our Rapid Response™ program, we work with our clients to identify pragmatic solutions to legal and business and family concerns, thereby reducing the managerial and financial burden of supporting full-time quality internal legal resources.

Our Outside General Counsel Services include:

    • General business review and risk assessment
    • Contract negotiations and preparation
    • Real estate leasing
    • Commercial contractual arrangements
    • Workforce management
    • Insurance coverage evaluation
    • Practical legal planning and advice for leadership
    • Broad strategic planning
    • Finance negotiation and management

International Project Management

Sophisticated global organizations, first-time international venturers, as well as other law firms and professional advisors rely upon us to help them achieve best-execution on cross-border projects. Having completed transactions involving all seven continents, we believe we offer rare experience in managing cross-border legal projects. In doing so, RMP delivers not only legal but practical knowledge, bringing together relevant legal and business knowledge and offering critical cross-cultural communications abilities.

Fund Formation & Joint Ventures

RMP designs, launches, and counsels funds and other collective investment vehicles, as well as establishing managed accounts and joint ventures. We have formed investment vehicles involving a myriad of jurisdictions, regulatory regimes, and asset classes. Our clients have invested in, sponsored, and managed investment strategies focused on real estate, healthcare, technology, energy, financial services, emerging markets, impact investing, and socially responsible markets. For them, we have executed their strategies through fund, joint venture, and separate account structures. Our experience with structuring (as well as overseeing the operations of) domestic and international vehicles allows us to steer our clients effectively on governance and tax matters as well as the estate planning and business-succession concerns that often arise in the investment management arena.