O’Melveny helps guide real estate investors and developers through an international market rife with shifting capital-formation methods, development structures, and regulatory requirements. With our diverse experience and wide geographic reach, we offer clients the legal and financial advice they need to develop projects, negotiate investments and partnerships, establish trusts, sustain long-term transactions, and succeed in court.

Throughout our history, we have helped real estate clients transform the globe, minimizing risk while maximizing returns on complex projects. Our interdisciplinary team combines dedicated real estate practitioners with seasoned finance, tax, M&A, environmental compliance, and trial lawyers. From advising on the purchase of retail-center portfolios to the development of a 100,000 acre master-planned community and the resolution of billion-dollar litigation, our real estate practice crafts innovative, practical strategies for clients around the world.

Our experience includes:
  • Counseling on landmark, master-planned communities ranging in size from 30 acres to 300,000 acres
  • Guiding private real estate investment trusts (REIT) and their investors through shifting market conditions and legal frameworks for more than 40 years
  • Advising on the acquisition and sale of many of the largest real estate assets and portfolios in the United States
  • Representing large- and medium-sized developers and home builders, as well as sources of capital, including commercial banks, Wall Street investment houses, opportunity funds, and pension advisors
  • Counseling on diverse structures, including participating and mezzanine debt, entitled and unentitled land development deals, acquisition and development projects, housing joint ventures, and apartment, multifamily, and condominium development and conversions
  • Serving as the principal finance counsel for a number of residential developers and home builders
  • Handling numerous transactions involving hotels, entertainment facilities, and mixed-use development projects around the world
  • Representing publically listed and privately held real estate companies in high stakes, complex disputes

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

O’Melveny assisted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in acquiring site control rights for its new US$300 million Motion Picture Museum in Los Angeles. Read

American International Group

O’Melveny helped AIG obtain a favorable settlement of a lawsuit filed by Kevin Fitzpatrick, the former CEO of AIG’s real estate business, who claimed that he was entitled to a profit interest in every real estate asset that the insurer owned worldwide during his 22-year tenure.  Read

Beach Point Capital Management

O’Melveny has represented Beach Point on several recent matters, including counseling on Beach Point’s investment in Residential Credit Opportunities LLC, a joint venture with American Mortgage Investment Partners and their various investment vehicles that was set up to invest in distressed residential mortgages, pools of mortgages, and properties with a potential total investment of US$150 million. Read

Case Study: RSI Home Products

O’Melveny represented RSI Home Products in its definitive agreement and plan of merger with American Woodmark Corporation. Read

Case Study: Sabra Healthcare REIT

O’Melveny represented Sabra Healthcare REIT Inc. in its definitive agreement to combine in an all-stock merger with Care Capital Properties Inc. Read

Homeinns Hotel Group

O’Melveny represented Homeinns, the largest operator of economy hotels in China, in its US$1.12 billion go-private deal with a consortium of investors including BTG Hotels Co. and its own executives. Read

Lehman Brothers Holdings

O’Melveny represented a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings in restructuring its ownership of the Culver Studios, a historic movie studio in Los Angeles, and the ultimate sale of the studio property. Read

Lennar

O’Melveny achieved a US$1 billion jury verdict for Lennar, a Fortune 500 homebuilder and land developer. Read

Prologis

O’Melveny represented the underwriters in three public offerings of debt by Prologis, raising aggregate gross proceeds of €2 billion. Prologis owns, operates, and develops industrial real estate across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Read

RSI Home Products

O’Melveny represented long-time client RSI Home Products, Inc. (RSI) in the issuance of US$575 million senior secured bonds and a series of related transactions including a tender offer and consent solicitation for US$525 million of RSI’s existing high-yield notes. Read

Value Rock Realty Partners

O’Melveny represented ValueRock in its over US$100 million acquisition of the Hawaii Kai Towne Center, one of the premiere retail properties in Hawaii, and in its purchase of several shopping center properties in California. Read
    • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 
    • American International Group
    • Anschutz Entertainment Group
    • Beach Point Capital Management 
    • California High Speed Rail Authority
    • Healthcare Trust of America 
    • Irvine Company
    • Lehman Brothers Holdings
    • Lennar Corp. The Macerich Company
    • Oaktree Capital Management 
    • Olson Urban Housing, LLC 
    • Prologis
    • Thomas Keller Restaurant Group 
    • ValueRock Realty Partners 
    • Walton International Group