White & Case LLP has advised Unibail-Rodamco, the commercial property company, on the long term leasing (ten years) by L’Oréal SA of 12 office floors and one floor dedicated to a restaurant (approximately 30,000 square metres) in So Ouest Plaza tower in Levallois-Perret, Paris.

White & Case recently advised Unibail-Rodamco on the long term lease agreement with Axa Investment Managers for the first 18 floors of Majunga tower, located in La Défense, Paris.

Gide’s Real Estate Transactions & Financing team has assisted L'Oréal in the reorganisation of its office space occupation in the Paris region, with three major leasing operations of offices off-plan:

  * Nuovo (leasing of 35,000 m² of offices in Clichy, north-western suburb of Paris),
  * Ecowest (leasing of 38,000 m² of offices in Levallois-Perret, western suburb of Paris), and
  * So Ouest Plaza (leasing of 28,384 m² of offices in Levallois-Perret, western suburb of Paris).

A huge 690,000 sq ft logistics base in Warrington is set to house The Hut Group after a major deal confirmed by Omega Warrington.

As part of 2014’s biggest logistics deal, developer Londonmetric has purchased the site for £47.5m via a forward-funding agreement with Omega, who were advised by Addleshaw Goddard.

The Hut has signed a 15-year lease with Londonmetric at a rent of £3.77 million pa, reflecting a net initial yield of 7.5%.

Slaughter and May is advising Derwent London on the re-gear of FremantleMedia's leases of premises at 1 and 2 Stephen Street, London W1. FremantleMedia is the world's largest creator and producer of entertainment brands (including The X Factor). Following completion of the re-gear, FremantleMedia will occupy approximately 83,000 square feet at a total initial rent of approximately £3.175 million with fixed increases over the term.

CONTACTS

Real Estate: Jane Edwarde (partner), Simon Bartle (associate), Mark Gulliford (associate) and Eleanor Stubbs (trainee)

Shoosmiths and Bond Dickinson have advised on a rail deal which will bring hundreds of new carriages on the Gatwick Express and Thameslink routes as part of a £317 million investment by the rail industry.

Shoosmiths advised Porterbrook, who won the tender to own and lease the 224 new custom built Electrical Multiple Unit (EMU) coaches at a cost of £317m that will operate on the new Govia Thameslink Railway franchise. Bond Dickinson advised Southern Railway and Govia Thameslink Railway on the financing of the new rolling stock.

Ashurst advised Sociedad Portuaria El Cayao S.A. E.S.P. (SPEC) in relation to its agreements with Hoegh LNG for the leasing, operation and maintenance of a 170,000 m3 Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) for a new LNG import terminal in Cartagena on the Atlantic coast of Colombia.

The Ashurst team was led by energy partner Philip Thomson and included energy partner Michael Burns, tax partner Richard Palmer, senior associates Julia Derrick and Jessica Neuberger and associates Letitia Bryan and Josh Cornally.

Partner Philip Thomson commented:

Norton Rose Fulbright’s rail practice has advised the UK government’s Department for Transport on the re-letting of the Intercity East Coast franchise. The Department announced its intention to award the franchise to Inter City Railways Limited (ICRL), a joint venture between Stagecoach and Virgin, on November 27 2014.

The Real Estate legal team at Gide advised P3, a specialist owner, developer and manager of European logistics properties, on an investment involving the creation of a production and storage facility for the furniture company Sofa.com in P3 Park Poznan. The building was opened on 1 September.

Gide represented P3 in the lease negotiations for production and storage space in P3 Park Poznan with British furniture dealer Sofa.com, operating in Poland through their subsidiary Zaparoh, as well as in negotiations with the general contractor, Goldbeck.

Macfarlanes has advised leading global advertising and marketing communications services company Omnicom on its consolidation of some of its London based businesses into a major office development at Bankside 2 and Bankside 3 in London.

Comprising 370,000 sq ft of office space, this is one of the largest office lettings of 2014 in central London.  The deal will see Omnicom bring several separate offices under one roof for the first time.

White & Case LLP advised Unibail-Rodamco, the commercial property company, on a long term lease agreement with AXA Investment Managers for the first 18 floors of Majunga tower.

Majunga is located in La Défense and the space will be available to AXA Investment Managers in 2015.

The White & Case team which advised Unibail-Rodamco was led by partner Brice Engel with support from associate Louise Duvernois.