David Djaha is managing partner of Ropes & Gray and a member of the firm’s management committee. Most recently, he led the firm’s global real estate investments & transactions group.

David focuses his practice on complex core and distressed acquisitions and dispositions as well as asset- and mortgage-backed finance. David has almost 30 years of experience representing clients in both U.S. and international transactions. He has extensive experience advising investment banks, private equity funds, and domestic and international developers and investors in all of their real estate transactional needs. Additionally, David regularly advises clients on matters involving capital markets, asset-based and mezzanine finance, as well as warehouse lending and construction lending, real estate private equity, and joint ventures involving domestic and international transactions.

Experience

  • Represented a global private equity firm in connection with its formation of four joint ventures to acquire multiple portfolios of office and development properties located throughout the United States, having a value of more than $1 billion.
  • Representing subsidiaries of a real estate investment trust in connection with the closing of loan facilities having an aggregate principal amount of over $15 billion.
  • Represented a private equity fund in connection with its investment in a $1.6 billion debt stack for the restructuring of a seven-property portfolio consisting of hotels in California and Hawaii, including the restructuring of multiple layers of debt, the forbearance of the senior loan, and negotiating new intercreditor arrangements.
  • Representing one of the world’s largest private equity investment firms, including most recently: the bid for a Florida office portfolio of over 100 properties; a $250 million investment in a public REIT; a consortium acquisition of two separate hotel chains; the acquisition and financing of a portfolio of Japanese real estate and related assets; and the acquisition of a multichannel specialty retailer.
  • Represented a global investment firm in organizing a credit- and real estate-related fund, developing the forms of transaction documents to be used in connection with the acquisition and disposition of anticipated purchases and sales of various performing and non-performing loan portfolios and other debt-related instruments to third parties, and assisting with the closing of the fund transaction.
  • Represented a group of affiliated publicly traded REIT in a series of acquisitions of commercial, medical and government office buildings in major U.S. cities, including Class A office buildings in Manhattan and Chicago totaling more than $1 billion and 4 million square feet.
  • Represented a global hedge fund in a joint venture with a New York developer to acquire and finance a 1+ acre site in New York City, to be developed into a multi-tower condominium development requiring approximately $600 million in combined capital.
  • Represented an institutional investor in the formation of a programmatic joint venture to acquire and develop more than $400 million of mixed-use real estate located in New York City, including 21 West End Avenue.
  • Represented a private real estate investment company and its capital partner, a large investment fund, in the distressed purchase of a New York hotel.

Areas of Practice