Alderan, the management company, has been strengthened through the acquisition by Activlmmo of various industrial and logistics assets. Activlmmo recently acquired an asset in Guadalajara for around EUR 9 million. M&B Abogados advised Alderan throughout this acquisition, as they have done since 2018.
“We conceive our commitment as going far beyond transactional legal support, as we also act as ‘interpreters of mentality’ and comparative law experts for our non-Spanish clients”
Q&A with Marti Blancho
Can you tell us more about this project and what role you and your team at M&B Abogados played in its completion?
Since they decided to expand their activities in Spain (i.e., in 2018), we have been advising the strategy asset management company, Alderan and its real estate investment trust, ActivImmo. This real investment fund specializes in logistics assets, and its presence in Spain has been greatly strengthened between 2022 and 2023 with the acquisition of various assets throughout the country.
The latest transaction on Iberian soil in which we assisted ALDERAN was the acquisition of an asset in Guadalajara (Castilla la Mancha) for approximately €9 million. We are particularly proud to have supported such a prestigious and successful company throughout the acquisition process, which ranged from an in-depth due diligence process to the negotiation of all the contractual documents.
We conceive our commitment as going much beyond transactional legal support, as we also act as a “mentality interprets” and comparative law experts for our non-Spanish clients; we take pride in fostering enduring relationships by guiding our clients seamlessly through the entire acquisition process, and through all the subsequent post-closing steps.
In what way does this operation reflect the core features of your business?
M&B Abogados specializes in international business law, with a strong real estate practice. We are a boutique law firm, with all the “traditional” departments: M&A and corporate, employment law and tax law. We have also developed our administrative and urban development law areas, mainly in support of our M&A and real estate practices.
In Spain, our core business centers around assisting foreign investors with their expansion in the country. We perform many real estate transactions, in a country where the role of the lawyer is essential in every step of the transaction, much more so than in other countries where Notaries are more proactive. Our target are mid-market deals, and we principally act on behalf of buyers that are either real estate trusts, real estate investment companies, family offices or, less frequently, individuals.
In such operations, we build a team of lawyers with different specializations and different levels of experience. For the last few years, we have been using project management methods and digital tools to increase the efficiency of the team by facilitating internal and external communication, the interdepartmental handling of legal issues, meeting deadlines and respecting the level of fees agreed with our clients. These methods allow us to adapt our work, our strategy, and our role to the specifics of the deal and the expectations of our clients. We have also developed the capacity of the firm to deal with several transactions at once, and to diversify our offer.
However, we also advise on more traditional M&A and corporate transactions in diverse sectors as biotech, media, digital economy, energy, food, and beverages, and so on. In these transactions, we obviously use the same principles to provide our clients with the same level of efficiency. But I’ll tell you more about this aspect of our practice when we focus on a future non-real estate transaction.
How do you see the profession of lawyer?
At the heart of our commitment is the utilization of legal tools to serve our clients’ operational objectives, and the understanding that we lawyers have a non-negligible but non-fundamental role as advisors. Our clients are businesspeople who take their decisions based on many different factors. I am convinced the lawyer must facilitate the decision-making by indicating the risks, if any, showing the easiest way from a legal perspective, drafting the necessary contracts, and leading the negotiations.
We are at our clients’ side, not in front of them, and not behind. In my opinion, one of the main qualities of a lawyer is attentive and proactive listening. To our clients, of course, first and foremost, but also to the other actors in a transaction. Listening leads to understanding and understanding provides clues to beneficial agreements.
I am also conscious that lawyers are service professionals, and that our clients are totally entitled to expect a top-quality provision from us, with an ever-open communication channel, written documents that are practical, to the point and legally sound, along with solid common sense and an understanding of the business environment. As our clients’ long-lasting partner, I need to have a thorough overview of their specific activity; not only of the sector they work in, but also of the specifics of their relations with their financial partners, different stakeholders, etc.
In our profession, every case is unique, and we must adapt our strategy and methods to the never-ending complexity of life. That is why it is such an intellectually stimulating and gratifying profession.
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