Australia’s property trust industry is recognised as a world leader in the global market, with the United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong all recognising Australia’s experience in this area.

Freehills has extensive experience in complex transactions of all sizes, from single asset wholesale deals to complex property syndicates, institutional, retail and listed funds.

We have been involved at the cutting edge of recent changes in the wholesale and structured property fund industries. Our experience means that we can help with:

• establishing and structuring the fund or restructure existing funds
• acquisition and disposal of assets
• advising on product offerings and assisting with the preparation of offer documents
• providing you with advice on stapled and hybrid securities offerings, and
• guiding you through the legal and regulatory requirements.

Acting for the major industry players means we offer a depth of expertise and experience gained from our involvement in most of the largest property trust transactions that have taken place in Australia. All our clients benefit from this expertise, as they have access to lawyers who have encountered their particular issues before.

Some of our recent experience includes:

• Adviser to the Investa Property Group on the creation and launch of a number of retail and wholesale property funds, mergers, acquisitions and restructures. This includes advising in relation to Investa Property Group’s unsolicited $1.5 billion cash and scrip takeover bid for Principal Office Fund, creating a fully merged entity with a market capitalisation of $2.9 billion.
• Adviser to Lend Lease on the establishment of its Core Plus stapled wholesale property funds, and on the establishment of the Lend Lease Communities Fund. 
• Adviser to Deutsche Bank’s real estate business concerning a complex and far-reaching restructure and expansion of its business and listed property trust platform. This included:
  • the establishment of a new trading trust
  • the change of responsible entity of the three Deutsche listed property trusts
  • the stapling of units in the three listed property trusts and the new trading trust
  • a partial internalisation of management, and
  • the acquisition of an 80% interest in a US$1.01 billion portfolio of US industrial property.
• Adviser to the DEXUS group concerning the restructure and stapling proposal to create a quadruple-stapled listed property trust, and on the creation of the DEXUS RENTS Trust and its offer of hybrid securities. 
• Adviser to Colonial First State on the sale of the Colonial First State Industrial Property Trust (IPT) to Macquarie Goodman at a transaction value of $500 million. The portfolio contained 22 industrial and high-tech industrial properties.
• Adviser to Toga on the establishment of a stapled hotel fund with assets in Australia, Denmark and Germany.
• Adviser in relation to Commonwealth Property Office Fund:
  • adviser to the Commonwealth on the IPO of the Commonwealth Property Office Fund. This raised $545.5 million, and was the first property trust IPO to be structured as a managed investment scheme
  • adviser on the merger of components of the listed Colonial First State Retail Property Trust group with the Commonwealth Property Office Fund and Gandel Retail Trust.

With signs of consolidation emerging in the property trust sector, participants are placing increasing importance on selecting advisers with the expertise and experience to execute on complex and strategic M&A transactions. Accordingly, having experienced consolidation in the Australian property trust sector in the 1990s, Freehills is well-positioned to advise participants in Asia, where property sector consolidation is a relatively new development.

Freehills has the ability to bring together the relevant specialist legal expertise to help you achieve your outcomes within this environment in the areas of M&A, private equity, property industry, funds management and debt finance.