Eric is a private equity real estate specialist. He advises on complex domestic and cross-border transactions involving assets and businesses that engage with the built environment. These include M&A and joint ventures; formation of, and investments into, private funds or co-investment platforms; secondaries and GP stakes; and bespoke investment management and operating partner arrangements.
Eric actively advises both users and providers of capital in the real estate space, and regularly works with real estate private equity funds, asset managers, operating partners, multi-managers, and institutional investors.
Eric has notable experience in structuring and executing operational real estate investments, such as investments into operating asset classes, platform strategies, and asset manager transactions.
Eric Lim is an outstanding lawyer who makes his clients feel like he is only working for them. Eric gives balanced, considered advice and thinks about the situation from a variety of angles.
Legal500 2024
Expertise
- Private equity real estate transactions
- Investment management and operating partner arrangements
- Real estate secondaries
- Corporate joint ventures and M&A
- Platform structuring and investments
- Operational real estate
- Indirect real estate investments
- GP stakes and other asset manager transactions
- REITS
- Proptech
Experience
Platform formation and investments; operational real estate joint ventures
- Advised a global real estate multi-manager on a joint venture alongside a global real estate sponsor and investor into a UK logistics development platform.
- Advised a transatlantic real estate fund on its investment and joint venture with a Spanish operating partner to acquire commercial properties in Madrid.
- Advised a global real estate investor on their joint venture with a European sponsor to establish and fund two generations of European logistics investment platforms with aggregate commitments over EUR 500 million.
- Advised Vega, a Spanish logistics operator, on its venture alongside AEW Europe, Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Migdal Group for the creation of a EUR 150 million platform to invest into last-mile Spanish logistics assets.
- Advised The Townsend Group on its anchor investment in Crossbay, a EUR 550 million European logistics platform managed by MARK.
- Advised a private equity real estate fund on the joint venture structuring, acquisition and post-acquisition management of a portfolio of Swiss mountain resort hotels.
- Advised a UK-based dark kitchen start-up on its proposed joint venture with a European real estate fund.
- Advised Dutch pension fund, APG, on its investment and joint venture into a PRC logistics and warehouse platform.
Secondaries, GP stakes and asset manager transactions
- Advised a global special situations investor on the acquisition of GP stakes in a pan-European last-mile logistics fund.
- Advised a global real estate sponsor on the proposed acquisition of interests in a German investment manager.
- Advised a global investor on the restructuring and recapitalisation of its operating partner’s interests in a commercial property joint venture.
- Advised Ardian on its USD 2.38 billion acquisition from a sovereign wealth fund of a portfolio of 40 private fund interests and related syndication to co-investors.
- Advised a consortium of global real estate investors on the recapitalisation of an end-of-life commingled fund to acquire interests in a mixed-used trophy asset valued at USD 1 billion.
Joint ventures and M&A
- Advised several European real estate funds on structuring and reorganisation of various UK portfolio investments into UK private REIT structures, and retrofitting associated joint venture arrangements into the private REIT regime.
- Advised Hines on its joint venture with funds managed by Apollo Global Management, Inc. and Italian real estate company VI-BA S.r.l. to acquire Aedes SIIQ S.p.A. by way of acquisition of a controlling interest followed by a mandatory public tender offer.
- Advised The Townsend Group on its joint venture with Argo Real Estate to acquire and redevelop Baltic Exchange, a Grade-II listed central London office building.
- Advised Mapletree on its acquisition from Vita Group of a portfolio of purpose-built student accommodation assets in England for GBP 165 million.
- Advised the consortium of DPK, Sun Hung Kai and Macquarie Capital on their GBP 110 million acquisition of 17 Columbus Courtyard, an office building in Canary Wharf London.
- Advised LabTech on the GBP 245 million sale of the Holborn Links Estate to a consortium led by Cording Real Estate and Tristan Capital Partners.
- Advised Mapletree on the GBP 560 million acquisition of Green Park, a business park in Reading.
- Advised Spring REIT (a Hong Kong-listed REIT) on the first acquisition transaction, comprising a portfolio of 84 commercial properties in England and Scotland.
- Advised a German real estate company on the EUR 900 million acquisition from a global private equity real estate manager of leisure real estate assets in Benelux and Germany.
- Advised Goldman Sachs on the EUR 112 million acquisition from Befimmo of Blue Tower, a trophy office building in Brussels.
- Advised an Asian government-linked investment company on the acquisition of a portfolio of logistics assets located in Poland, Germany and the United States, with a total deal value in excess of USD 900 million.
- Advised Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing on its acquisition of prime commercial and retail real estate portfolio in Budapest, and the related consortium arrangements.
Real estate investment funds
- Advised a global indirect real estate manager on a significant co-investment alongside Ares European Real Estate’s flagship fund into a EUR 400 million European logistics platform.
- Advised a group of institutional investors on their co-investment with HighBrook Investors to acquire Groot Handelsgebouw, a prime central commercial property in Rotterdam, by way of a demerger transaction under Dutch law. The transaction was valued at c. EUR 170 million.
- Advising a group of cornerstone investors on the restructuring of European core fund from a German fund entity into a Luxembourg limited partnership.
- Advised Gaw Capital Partners on the formation of Gateway Real Estate Fund IV which raised over USD 1 billion in capital commitments, the formation of various related co-investment entities, and a range of fund operational matters.
Please note: The experience list above may include examples of work completed prior to joining Keystone Law.
Recognition
Recognised by The Legal 500 for Real Estate Funds and Investment
Career
Eric qualified as a solicitor in 2007. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2024, he worked at the following firms:
- Goodwin
- Baker McKenzie
- Reed Smith