The lawyers who comprise the large Shumaker REIT practice team are knowledgeable advisers to real estate investment trusts (REITs), including Welltower Inc., formerly Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE – HCN), an S&P 500 company with headquarters in Toledo, Ohio, that invests with leading seniors housing operators, post-acute providers and health systems. The company also provides an extensive array of property management and development services. As of December 31, 2016, the company's broadly diversified portfolio consisted of interests in more than 1,400 properties in major, high-growth markets in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Shumaker also represents other private and publicly traded REITs with varied portfolios and assets.
Shumaker’s practice is national and international in scope, and Shumaker attorneys counsel REITs in investment transactions that involve mergers, acquisitions, sale-lease backs, joint ventures and public and private capital raisings.
Shumaker also assists its REIT clients, especially those that are publicly traded, with a wide range of other legal matters, including securities law filings and compliance, corporate governance, investor relations, executive compensation, employment law, intellectual property issues and litigation monitoring.
What Makes Us Different
With its strong transactional focus, the Shumaker REIT team is known for facilitating expeditious closings for its REIT clients by completing deals on its clients’ timetables or sooner. Shumaker has a dedicated team of 20 professionals who make sure that nothing happens to derail an acquisition/investment or capital-raising transaction. They do this by streamlining the process upfront and managing the transaction through post-closing. The Shumaker REIT team approaches all of its clients’ transactions as a “partner” and evaluates its success on whether its clients’ and the clients' goals have been accomplished and relationships enhanced.
The Shumaker REIT team’s ability to facilitate transactions for its clients is rooted in the deep real estate and capital markets knowledge that the team brings to the table, especially in transactions across the health care spectrum. Shumaker has assisted its REIT clients in transactions involving everything from senior-housing facilities to large complex medical office buildings and hospital campuses.
For healthcare-focused REITs, as well as for provider institutions that have real estate transactions, the Shumaker REIT team’s experience representing Welltower, one of the most active public investors in the healthcare market, gives Shumaker an advantage when negotiating the terms of these complex transaction documents.
Why You Benefit
Shumaker lawyers are brought in by its REIT clients as strategic advisers. They understand their clients’ vision and are asked to participate in its execution. Using this insight, the Shumaker REIT team is available to advise on specific issues where legal and business concerns intersect, emphasizing up front solutions to maximize problem-free transactions.
The breadth of the Shumaker REIT team’s vision as an adviser also encompasses partnering with its clients “out of the office,” which helps its REIT clients realize their philanthropic objectives in the communities where they do business. In these and other ways, Shumaker’s goal is to do what its clients need Shumaker to do in order to make a difference.
Core Services
- Serve as lead counsel in public and private capital raisings and related corporate finance matters.
- Serve as counsel in a wide range of investment transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, sale-lease backs and joint ventures.
- Provide up-front guidance on transactional structuring and documentation.
- Assist with other operational issues that confront publicly traded REITs, including securities law filings and compliance, corporate governance, investor relations, executive compensation, employment law, intellectual property and litigation monitoring.
What you can expect from Shumaker
Shumaker lawyers implement their “partnering” philosophy in many ways, including the expeditious execution of transactions. The Shumaker REIT team uses its extensive capital market experience to help clients achieve business goals on both the capital raising and investment sides of transactions.
Whether clients are interested in alternative fee arrangements or structuring in-house legal training programs for their executives, Shumaker will do whatever is needed and whatever works best for its REIT clients. With a team of 20 dedicated REIT professionals, the Shumaker REIT team can handle large transactional needs and assist with related concerns involving the full spectrum of legal needs. Shumaker employs a focused, collaborative approach that its clients appreciate.
Representative Experience
The Shumaker REIT team represents Welltower Inc., formerly Health Care REIT, Inc. (NYSE - HCN) with respect to Welltower's capital transactions, acquisitions, dispositions and corporate governance issues, among other matters.
Recent Transactions
- In 2015 and through March 1, 2016, Shumaker served as lead counsel in Welltower's public offerings of shares of common stock and U.S. senior unsecured notes, resulting in gross proceeds of approximately $1.25 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively. Welltower’s equity offering in 2015 included its largest overnight marketed deal in the REIT sector in 2015 with $1.5 billion in proceeds, priced at $75.50 per share, the highest offering price in Welltower’s history. Similarly, Welltower’s issuance of $700 million of 10-year unsecured debt in March 2016 was Welltower’s largest single-trance debt offering in its history.
- In 2015 and 2016, the Shumaker team assisted Welltower in its completion of approximately $4.8 billion and $3.0 billion of gross investments, respectively, and approximately $1.2 billion and $2.0 billion of strategic dispositions, respectively.