Andrew P. Armfelt is a partner in the Paris office of Mayer Brown’s Real Estate practice, having commenced his career in London where he was admitted as a solicitor in 1970. He was involved in mergers and acquisitions, corporate and insolvency work in London before embarking on more than 15 years in the project finance field travelling extensively, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, and dealing principally with joint venture agreements, construction and engineering contracts, financing documentation and international arbitration. Having been a partner for more than 12 years in a leading London Law firm, he continued his international practice from Paris being admitted to the Paris Bar in 1986.
He has particular experience with in-bound investment transactions and as from the mid-1990's, concentrated on the real estate investment sector in which he has helped establish a number of operating platforms and joint ventures between private equity funds and operating partners throughout Europe and the Far East.
In the field of Real Estate Private Equity he has extensive experience in negotiating and structuring investments in Europe and elsewhere for investors including, in particular, real estate investment funds. A number of these investments, including cross border European asset portfolios, have been in the hotel and hospitality sector, in which he is well known in France and elsewhere to owners, financiers and operators.
His experience in the hotel and leisure sector has involved advising and representing a wide variety of parties, including:
- real estate investment funds;
- hotel industry specific investment funds;
- corporate and personal owners and investors;
- hotel operators as real estate owners;
- hotel operators as lessees or managers; and
- various consultants to the industry.
and the type of work carried out in the wider real estate industry has included:
- Acquisitions of portfolios, individual assets and groups or companies;
- Financing and refinancing acquisitions including, in particular, asset based non-recourse financing;
- Establishing real estate investment platforms and joint ventures;
- A variety of hotel industry real estate related documentation, including financial leases, leases and sale and lease back transactions and industry operating agreements such as management contracts, commercialisation agreements, franchises, consultancy agreements; and
- Dispute resolution concerning contractual arrangements and/or construction contracts.
The countries involved include the main jurisdictions in the European Union as well as Africa and Middle East, Japan and the French overseas departments and territories.