James Clamp

Recent Work

• Led the real estate advice to a client on the purchase of a care home group comprising 9 operating homes for £108 million. He also advised on the associated real estate finance work involved, as part of obtaining funding for the purchase from a US REIT.
• Acting on the acquisition and funding of over 100 sites for redevelopment as large residential care homes. With a gross developed value of over £400 million, the sale of many of these were to institutional and operator purchasers.
• Advising care home operators on the acquisition, funding and sale of care home businesses. James handles both the real estate and business transfer aspects of these transactions.

James advises a variety of developers on acquisitions, disposals and securing development funding. He has dealt with the acquisition of over 115 sites for care home development and dealt with the funding, leasing and selling of those developed sites.

James has significant experience of advising developers/occupiers on forward funding development agreements. He also has experience of dealing with complex site assembly (achieved via conditional contracts, pre-emption and option agreements) on behalf of developers to enable end disposals with the benefit of planning permission.

Recent Work

• Acting on the acquisition of a 19 acre development site in Hemel Hempstead for a data centre provider. This involved the granting of complex sub-lease interests to a major satellite broadcasting company requiring high specification, secure and 24-hourly operational data centres.
• Acting on a planning promotion agreement for a developer in relation to a 50 acre site for housing development and advising on the associated ‘site assembly’ aspects to enable the development to proceed.
• Acting on the acquisition and funding of over 100 sites for redevelopment as large residential care homes.

James has acted for occupiers taking leases of new buildings, signing up to ‘pre-let’ development space and in the on-going management of portfolios (including lease re-gearings). He is experienced in all aspects of non-contentious landlord and tenant law. James also has significant experience in dealing with investor style leases where landlords require institutional strength covenants to preserve residual investment value.

Recent Work

• Advising a major international data centre operator on the leasing of several purpose built data centre site. Also, the subsequent sub-lease of parts of these sites to ‘blue chip’ multinationals as part of complex service level agreements.
• Advising a Japanese company on its flagship London office re-location near the Bank of England; securing a 15 year lease with a net rental liability in excess of £3 million p/a.

James has advised a multitude of banks, investors, and developers in a wide range of real estate finance contexts. He has advised on complex development finance projects where investment finance has been provided through intricate corporate structures. He has also completed developments acquired by investors through ROFOs or share call options.

He has acted for many ‘high street’ banks on more mainstream debt finance deals and has a wealth of experience dealing with institutional investment/lending requirements.

In recent years James has undertaken a lot of work with US REITs. He is experienced in dealing with ‘triple net’ lease structures and cross-collateralised framework agreements for portfolio deals.

Recent Work

• Led the real estate advice to a client on the sale of a portfolio of 23 UK-wide residential and nursing care properties to a US REIT in a £75.8 million sale and leaseback arrangement.
• Advising a care operator on the negotiation of a funding framework agreement, to provide a secure source of development funding from Middle Eastern backed investors.
• Led on the real estate advice to a developer obtaining development finance from a US REIT (including advising on ‘ROFO’ agreements).
• Led the real estate advice to a client on the purchase of a portfolio of 9 operating care homes for £103 million. James also led the associated real estate finance work involved as part of obtaining funding for the purchase from a US REIT.
• Acting for institutional funders providing real estate finance to borrowers (ranging from lending values of £500k – £30 million) in a range of contexts and sectors.