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Bruce Stachenfeld is one of the nation’s preeminent real estate attorneys. In addition to being a founding partner of the Firm and co-head of the Firm’s Transactional Department, he is also member of various practice groups established within the Firm, including the Real Estate Practice Group, the Restructuring and Workouts Practice Group, the Retail Practice Group, the Investment Funds Practice Group, the Hotels and Resorts Practice Group and the Tax Exempt Real Estate Practice Group
Mr. Stachenfeld also serves as the Firm’s managing partner.
With close to 25 years of real estate legal experience, Mr. Stachenfeld: (i) is a graduate of Harvard Law School, (ii) is a veteran of tens of billions of dollars of real estate acquisitions, dispositions, financings and other transactions, and (iii) has structured and completed numerous transactions in virtually all areas of real estate and related disciplines.
Currently, Mr. Stachenfeld concentrates primarily in the following areas:
Co-Venture Transactions (e.g., representing Money Partners and Operating Partners in real estate and corporate transactions): Since 1996, Mr. Stachenfeld has represented institutional and non-institutional clients (particularly institutional investment funds) investing in well over 1000 complex real estate transactions both within and without U.S. jurisdictions. Indeed, Mr. Stachenfeld has developed a niche as one of the leading attorneys nationwide in real estate transactions that have multiple tranches of debt or equity, including structures involving partnerships, limited liability companies, multiple layers of mezzanine debt, and mixtures of debt and equity.
Non-U.S. Transactions: Mr. Stachenfeld has been responsible for structuring and effectuating numerous non-U.S. cross-border transactions in various jurisdictions including Asia, Europe and South America.
Complex and Highly Structured (Outside the Box) Real Estate Transactions: Mr. Stachenfeld has developed a reputation as a creative thinker who is able to use his creativity and extensive experience to structure difficult and unusual transactions. Through the years he has created unique structures for transactions that, but for outside the box thinking, would not have
otherwise been able to be consummated. Some of Mr. Stachenfeld’s most significant achievements include (i) being one of the original architects of preferred equity in real estate transactions, (ii) the creation of a facility transaction vehicle permitting the money partner and the operating partner to co-invest in multiple transactions with crossed promotes and (iii) (of late) architecting a new structure for distressed acquisitions that is of particular use for IRR-driven investors. Indeed, Mr. Stachenfeld prides himself in considering a troubled transaction or a client with a difficult problem as a challenge to be solved.
Acquisitions and Dispositions: Mr. Stachenfeld has extensive experience representing institutional and non-institutional clients in acquiring and disposing of interests in real estate in virtually all U.S. jurisdictions and (as noted above) a growing list of international territories. These include both individual asset and portfolio transactions.
Real Estate Workouts, Insolvencies and Restructurings: During the real estate downturn of the early 1990’s, Mr. Stachenfeld acquired considerable expertise in serving as counsel to lenders and borrowers in complex insolvencies and restructurings. This expertise was of little use in the past ten years but, of late, has come back strongly into vogue recently as clients have been attempting to either capitalize on the market illiquidity or work themselves out of troubles caused by this illiquidity.
Representation of Borrowers in Real Estate Loan Transactions: Since a large percentage of Mr. Stachenfeld’s clients seek to leverage their investments (both in real estate and corporate matters), Mr. Stachenfeld has represented the borrower’s interest in numerous (hundreds) of separate loan transactions aggregating many billions of dollars. Mr. Stachenfeld is considered one of the nation’s foremost authorities in representing the interests of the borrower in real estate loan transactions.
Representation of Lenders in Real Estate Loan Transactions: Mr. Stachenfeld has represented institutional and non-institutional lenders in many different types of real estate loan transactions, including single and multi-property transactions, construction loans, mezzanine loans and loans made for securitization purposes.
Real estate in corporate transactions: Throughout his career, Mr. Stachenfeld has been responsible for the real estate components of a large number of corporate transactions (including acquisitions and financings). This area, although it began as a servicing role for corporate matters, has evolved so that Mr. Stachenfeld (together with the firm’s Corporate Practice Group) now represents the rare breed of client who is able to mix real estate and corporate issues together in a single transaction. Indeed, this has become a specialty practice area for Mr. Stachenfeld as there are very few lawyers who are able to mesh real estate into corporate transactions (and the converse) this is of particular use to clients who try to capitalize by buying corporate businesses with significant real estate components and break out the corporate and real estate assets separately to unlock excess value from the financial engineering.
Particular areas of expertise: In connection with Mr. Stachenfeld’s general expertise outlined above, Mr. Stachenfeld has developed particular expertise in transactions involving (i) ground leases, (ii) hotels, (iii) reciprocal easement agreements and vertical subdivisions, (iv) commercial landlord/tenant dispute resolutions, and (v) shopping center acquisition, development and redevelopment.
Prior to founding Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, Mr. Stachenfeld was a partner in the law firm of Shapiro, Shapses, Block & Stachenfeld LLP. Before that, he practiced at the New York offices of Latham & Watkins; Mayer Brown & Platt; and Shea & Gould. Mr. Stachenfeld has lectured at Practicing Law Institute seminars and is a member of the American Bar Association.
Mr. Stachenfeld is admitted to practice law in New York.
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