About Ashurst

Ashurst is a leading global law firm with a history spanning almost 200 years, and clear strategy for our future growth. Our in-depth understanding of our clients and commitment to providing exceptional standards of service have seen us become a trusted adviser to local and global corporates, financial institutions and governments in all areas of commercial law. To find out more please visit here .

In order to comply with regulatory and client requirements, Ashurst will undertake appropriate vetting of staff. When applicants accept a job offer, Ashurst, alongside a specialist provider, will undertake professional verification and background checks. These checks are only undertaken with consent, and in accordance with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Team overview:

Ashurst is a top tier firm practising in real estate. We are one of a handful of large global law firms for whom real estate remains a key area of focus and of strategic importance.

Our team is best known for advising on all aspects of real estate activity of high value market leading acquisitions and disposals, asset management, large scale development schemes, real estate finance, funds, joint ventures, construction, planning, environment and tax advice across all property types, both in the private and public sectors. This 'one stop shop' creates a unique offering amongst leading law firms.

We act for clients in every part of the real estate sector: financiers, governments, investors (with a strong focus on inbound capital from overseas), pension funds, developers, contractors, operators and asset managers.

Our strong market position is demonstrated in our industry rankings, notably Tier 1 for Commercial Property Investment, Commercial Property Development and Commercial Property Corporate Occupiers in the Legal 500 UK 2021.

'The Ashurst real estate team offers a broad range of capabilities and provides sound and practical advice. The team's strength lies in its partners who are technically very good, as you would expect, but also commercially astute.' - Legal 500 UK

'This real estate powerhouse has the capacity to complete the most complex transactions, effectively marshalling the firm's different departments to meet the needs of clients.' - Chambers UK

Recent work highlights include:

• Panattoni on a c.£200m disposal and forward funding of a logistics warehouse to be developed at Symmetry Park near Swindon. This is the largest ever single asset logistics deal in the UK.
• Korean investors on multiple acquisitions across Central London including 70 Mark Lane, 1 Poultry, Cannon Bridge House, 125 Shaftsbury Avenue, 20 Old Bailey and 200 Aldersgate.
• Tritax Eurobox - On the £300m UK listing of Tritax Eurobox platform launching into the logistics market across Europe with assets under management of approximately €600 million and a pipeline of €1.8 billion.
• The Valesco Group - on the acquisition of the Finance Tower, a skyscraper located in Brussels' CBD for c.€1.2 billion. The landmark purchase represents the largest single asset acquisition in mainland Europe in recent years, and the second largest single asset acquisition in mainland Europe ever.
• Oxford Properties - On the joint venture unit purchase acquisition and financing of five major freehold sites on New Bond Street for in excess of £300m with Richemont, the joint venture and investment acquisitions of and financing for the London Stock Exchange for c.£210m, St Martin's Court, Paternoster Row for c.£110m and a 50% stake in MidCity Place for c.£140m together with the joint venture arrangements with Brockton Capital on the redevelopment of the Royal Mail Sorting Office on New Oxford Street.
• Tritax Delancey JV - Advising on the set-up of a joint venture fund, and advising the JV on the acquisition of 7 retail parks as the seed properties as well as the financing for the JV.
• Hines - On its three acquisitions in London's West End in 2020 - 7 Soho Square, New Bond Street and Grain House on Drury Lane.
• Invesco - On its Invesco Separate Account UK Multi-Family Allocation involving the forward funding, acquisition and development of two sites in east and west Greater London at Barking Wharf and Kew Bridge comprising a total of 1,084 build to rent units.
• The Berkeley Group on various large scale long term strategic landholding co-investments with landowners around the country to secure opportunities for future developments.
• Lendlease on its appointment by HS2 and Network Rail as the major development partner for the redevelopment of Euston Station above and alongside the new HS2 station and existing Network Rail station.
• Westfield on their major retail led developments at White City, Stratford and Croydon.
• Stanhope plc, alongside the Baupost Group LLC, in connection with the development scheme at Royal Street, London including 5 buildings totalling 2.1m square feet for an office-led scheme with supporting retail and community uses, new public spaces and 130 residential units on the 5.5 acre site close to Waterloo Station and next to St. Thomas's Hospital.
• Oxford West End Development (joint venture between Oxford City Council and Nuffield College) - Advising on the development of the 20 acre Oxpens area in Oxford to provide a mixed use development comprising approximately 500 residential units a 150 bed hotel and 120,000 square feet of office space.
• Transport for London and Crossrail on the £16bn Crossrail project including overstation developments at Moorgate, Hanover Square and Tottenham Court Road.
• Balfour Beatty and Places for People on the East Wick and Sweetwater development at the site of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
• Partners Group - on its pre-let to flexible workspace provider Convene of 70,000 sq ft at 80 Fenchurch Street in the City of London.
• BP - On the sale and leaseback of 1 St James's Square, a key part of bp's global real estate strategy, which also saw it enter into a sale and leaseback of its Sunbury Campus which Ashurst also acted on.
• IBM on the proposed redevelopment of the IBM headquarters building on Southbank including the potential 2 year move out and move back mechanism with temporary accommodation for the 2 year period.

Representative Clients:

Oxford Properties, Samsung SRA AM, Knight Frank Investment Management, DTZ Investment Management, Capitaland, British Land, Lendlease, BP, Transport for London, Stanhope, Great Portland Estates, Almacantar, Invesco, Telford Homes, Greenland Group, Berkeley Homes, Panattoni, Norges Bank, DWS, Grosvenor.

Job overview:

The team are recruiting for an associate with post admission experience of real estate work to focus on high-end multidisciplinary real estate work.

An associate role for a real estate lawyer with significant post-qualification experience at a major law firm. You will work alongside partners and associates across the real estate sector to provide technically excellent, commercial advice to the team's diverse client base.

Essential skills and experience:

• You will already have acquired significant experience in real estate and will be able to contribute to professional development and know-how and participate in training where appropriate
• You will take day to day responsibility for running transactions with minimal partner input. You will be able to demonstrate excellent drafting skills
• You will be confident and effective in negotiations with counterparts
• You will be effective in communicating with clients in order to understand their needs and how best to meet them. You will also have the ability to assist clients in arriving at practical and cost effective solutions
• You will be able to demonstrate a track record in building client relationships
• You will have excellent attention to detail, identifying inconsistencies that indicate problems with quality of work or a misunderstanding of clients' needs
• You will gather information from a variety of sources to identify your own strengths and weaknesses
• You will be ambitious and highly motivated and be willing to go the extra mile in your contribution to the wider real estate group
• You will be a team-player who can work effectively with colleagues at all levels
• You will have experience in managing a transaction team and be able to demonstrate an interest in developing more junior members of the team
• You will have a commercial approach

Career advancement:

An established Associate Career Path Framework is in place clearly defining expectations and outlining opportunities for promotion.

Secondment opportunities:

Opportunities often arise for associates to spend time on secondment in house with a key client of the firm. From time to time, secondment opportunities also come up within other Ashurst offices in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.

Salary: Competitive