Francesca specialises in real estate law, property development and investment. Francesca’s practice has a particular focus on complex development projects, real estate fund investments, structured transactions, capital partnering, joint ventures and co-ownership arrangements, fund through acquisitions and project delivery agreements.
Francesca acts for local and overseas clients, for sponsors and capital, developers and investors across a broad range of sectors, including traditional real estate assets (office, retail, industrial/logistics) and alternative asset classes (data centres, agriculture/forestry, land lease and airports).
Representative, recent matters
Data centres
- Blackstone on all real estate/development aspects of its acquisition of AirTrunk. Ongoing engagement to peer review AirTrunk acquisition and development agreements
- CBRE Investment Management on development and investment in a greenfield data centre build-to-suit development
- ESR on data centre pipeline acquisition and development arrangements in APAC
- Stockland/Fife joint venture to develop land for data centre use in NSW
Agriculture/forestry
- PSP on all real estate aspects of its $11b investment in Australian agricultural and water assets
- New Forests on the sale of Murray River Forests to Manulife, and new matters in relation to farm and farming operator acquisitions
Industrial/logistics
- ESR on the joint venture with Starwood in a highly structured insolvent acquisition to acquire Qenos (insolvent) and secure and develop strategic land in Botany NSW and Altona VIC
- LogiSPACE (underbidder) on $12-$15b end value joint venture with Boral for repositioning and development of VIC quarry land
- Hankyu Hanshin Properties acquisition of $550m interest in $3.2b ESR logistics fund
- Dexus Australian Logistics Trust platform establishment and sell down to GIC and then Blackstone
- Ampol on strategic joint venture arrangements to unlock surplus land for development
Residential
- Stockland affordable housing platforms in QLD and VIC, and land lease community platforms across Australia
- PSP investment in build-to-rent platform with Local (Macquarie backed platform)
Retail
- Hines/Haben joint venture acquisition of Westpoint Shopping Centre ($900m)
- Dexus Shopping Centre Fund 50% pre-emptive sale of Tea Tree Plaza Shopping Centre to Barrenjoey/Scentre managed fund
Office
- Singland/UOL: (80/20 JV) acquisition of 50% interest 388 George Street, Sydney
- Dexus sale of 50% interest to Blackstone
