Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Sullivan & Cromwell’s Real Estate Group occupies a unique leadership position in global commercial real estate transactions and restructurings. As an industry-based group, our real estate attorneys utilize a multi-disciplinary approach to offer clients expertise in joint ventures, acquisitions and dispositions, financings and capital markets issuances, bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, and complex restructurings of family-owned businesses and assets. Despite the challenging credit markets, our Real Estate Group has been able to leverage its deep and broad-based expertise to assist its clients in accessing non-traditional markets for real estate financings, as well as in complex restructurings, recapitalizations and opportunistic investments in, and sales of, debt and equity instruments related to the real estate industry. The Group also continued to enhance its long-standing expertise in the structuring and formation of new private equity funds to invest in real estate related assets.

Notable representations include:

• AIG in its sale of approximately $40 billion face amount RMBS to an entity owned and financed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
   
• Numerous borrowers and lenders in connection with distressed debt situations, including two of the four mezzanine lenders in the Station Casinos restructuring, Apollo in connection with several situations in which it holds debt positions, Dubai World in connection with its interests in MGM City Center, and Eton Park with respect to certain of its investments.
   
• Fairholme Capital Management, LLC and Pershing Square in their $3.925 billion capital commitment for the stand-alone plan of reorganization of General Growth Properties
   
• Fairholme Capital Management, LLC in the $1.7 billion sale of its 11% stake in General Growth Properties Inc. to Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
   
• Frank McCourt and his entities in the $150 million sale of the Chavez Ravine property surrounding Dodgers Stadium, in connection with Mr. McCourt’s $2 billion sale of the L.A. Dodgers professional baseball team to Guggenheim Baseball Management
   
• Goldman Sachs in the formation of a $2.1 billion fund that will invest in real estate assets outside of the United States and a $2.6 billion fund that will make mezzanine loan investments.
   
• A majority of the Pritzker family beneficiaries in connection with the $950 million initial public offering of Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
   
• Songbird Estates plc (the parent company of Canary Wharf Group) in its approximately £1 billion debt and equity recapitalization.
   
• Toys “R” Us in an approximately $1 billion high-yield financing, American Casino & Entertainment Properties in a high-yield bond offering, and numerous TALF-related financings, in each case as an alternative to traditional CMBS financing in light of the challenging climate for such financings.
   
• Vornado Realty Trust and Crescent Real Estate in connection with the sale of their respective interests in AmeriCold Realty Trust (the owner and operator of cold storage facilities) to funds affiliated with the Yucaipa Group.
   
• Whitehall Street Limited Partnership in numerous acquisitions and dispositions, including its $1.2 billion acquisition of American Casino & Entertainment Properties, the owner of the Stratosphere Casino in Nevada.

The Group comprises more than 30 lawyers, including six partners in the Firm’s New York office, one partner in the Firm’s London office, who is primarily responsible for the Group’s European real estate practice, and lawyers located in the Firm’s Tokyo, Hong Kong and Los Angeles offices who regularly engage in real estate transactions.

Our Real Estate Group and its lawyers are widely regarded as leaders in the field and consistently recognized in guides to the legal profession, including Chambers and Partners’ benchmark guides, the IFLR1000, The US Legal 500, PLC Cross-border Corporate Real Estate and PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook, Guide to the World's Leading Real Estate Lawyers, The International Who's Who of Real Estate Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, Lawdragon and New York Super Lawyers.

Sullivan & Cromwell is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We believe that diversity is vital to the Firm’s ability to provide our clients with the highest level of service. Accordingly, the Firm’s culture and policies value the unique abilities and perspectives of every individual and support diversity in its broadest sense, including race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability and religious affiliation. 

The Firm’s Diversity Committee, which is charged with assisting in the development of a diverse and inclusive workforce, is comprised of lawyers who hold positions of leadership and influence within the Firm. A member of the Firm’s Management Committee co-chairs the Diversity Committee. Other members of the Diversity Committee include the Firm’s senior chairman, practice group managing partners, hiring partners, assigning partners, chairs of the Firm’s associate affinity networks, and chairs of the Women’s Initiative Committee. The Firm also has a Diversity Management Department (“DMD”), which is charged with developing, implementing and coordinating the Firm’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, events and programs. Realizing the importance of an integrated approach, the DMD works closely with our Recruiting, Professional Development and Legal Personnel Departments to monitor the effectiveness of our extensive diversity initiatives and programs to further the Firm’s mission.

This ongoing commitment has led to great results, including the increased diversity of our partnership. As of January 1, 2013, the Firm had elected thirty-nine partners worldwide in the prior six years; of these thirty-nine partners, thirteen are women, eleven are minorities, and one is openly gay.

In its most recent rankings, Vault listed S&C as among the “20 Best Law Firms for LGBT Diversity.” In addition, MultiCultural Law magazine has named S&C to its annual lists of the “Top 100 Law Firms for Women” and “Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity” for several years, including most recently in 2012. Click here for Diversity Recognitions.

In addition, our lawyers have diverse backgrounds; they speak over 30 languages fluently and they come from approximately 40 different countries and 150 different law schools.