Memery Crystal advises on landmark £90m+ property acquisition

Built in 2014 in the heart of Aldgate, The Relay Building is a 22 storey tower, containing 105,996 square feet of office and retail space. The property is fully leased to a wide range of tenants on long term leases. Major tenants include Blockchain, MindSpace, Paddy Power, Pret a Manger, and Tesco Stores.

The Relay Building is located at 114 Whitechapel High Street in London. The building is situated in close proximity to a number of commuter train stations, with the area seeing a large amount of development activity and regeneration in recent years. This purchase signifies the ongoing commitment to investment into London and strength of the real estate market.

The transaction utilised a broad range of Memery Crystal’s legal services including, real estate, corporate, banking, tax, construction and employment advice. In all, over 30 lawyers from Memery Crystal were involved in advising on this complex, cross-border structured real estate acquisition.

The Memery Crystal team was led by Co-Head of Real Estate Daniel Abrahams, assisted by an extensive team including Greg Scott (Partner, Corporate), Krishen Patel (Senior Associate, Corporate), William Heywood (Senior Associate, Banking) and Helen Abel (Senior Associate, Real Estate).

Daniel Abrahams, Co-Head of Real Estate at Memery Crystal, said: “This showcases our ability to close transactions of significant scale and complexity. We at Memery Crystal are incredibly proud to have assisted with the purchase of this landmark building, located in such a vibrant part of east London. The acquisition once again demonstrates our reputation as a full service real estate firm, including managing complicated corporate and offshore structures. We look forward to supporting Harbor Group and Z.C. Ronogil with further projects.”

Other professional advisers included Buchler Barnett Spencer, Burlington Green Partners, Allsop, Dutch law firm Buren, First Names, and Mourants.

Note to editors:

1. Founded in 1978, Memery Crystal is now recognised as one of the UK’s leading law firms in our specialist areas, regularly cited in Chambers UK and The Legal 500. The firm has market-leading expertise in handling acquisitions and disposals, financing, development, construction, planning and all manner of property-related disputes. For more information, please visit https://www.memerycrystal.com/what-we-do/real-estate/
2. Harbor Group International (HGI) is a private real estate investment and management firm which controls a portfolio of worldwide assets valued at $7.3 billion.  HGI is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia with offices in New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv.  The company’s real estate holdings include 4.8 million square feet of commercial properties and approximately 30,000 apartment units.
3. Founded in 2002 by Hezi Chermoni, ZC Ronogil Investments is a family business, specialising in high yield investment property in Israel and worldwide.