Tom Fileti is head of the firm's Los Angeles Real Estate Practice Group. He represents a broad spectrum of clients in connection with investments in, and the financing, development, operation, and disposition of, real estate assets. Mr. Fileti's practice emphasizes real estate finance transactions and credit facilities of all types, including transactions involving REITs; acquisition and disposition of real estate assets, loans, and portfolios; matters involving hotel financing, acquisition, operation, and disposition; real estate joint ventures and other equity investments; and workouts, restructuring and the exercise of remedies with respect to problem loans, troubled joint ventures, and other problem real estate investments. He has also represented clients in connection with real estate aspects of transactions involving utility station sites and corridors.
Mr. Fileti regularly represents financial institutions and other clients in connection with syndicated credit facilities, A/B notes and participation arrangements; mezzanine financing; note purchase transactions; and intercreditor and co-lender arrangements with revolving construction financing of major office, residential, hospitality and mixed-use projects, the financing of large portfolios, and other substantial transactions. In the current economic downturn, he is representing clients in loan restructurings and workouts, as well as in foreclosures and the pursuit of other remedies.
Mr. Fileti has particular expertise in connection with credit lease transactions involving corporate real estate assets. Since 1992, he has represented clients in credit lease transactions aggregating over $2.5 billion for the acquisition, construction, or holding of strategic real estate assets such as corporate headquarters and campuses, manufacturing and distribution facilities, and health care facilities. He also has substantial experience representing clients in connection with the purchase, sale, financing, and operation of hotels, hotel chains and hotel portfolios.
Mr. Fileti represents REITs and clients involved in transactions with REITs; financial services firms; foreign and domestic banks, investment banks, and financial institutions; life insurance companies, pension plans, and other institutional investors; and high-tech, biotech, and other industrial companies.
Mr. Fileti's REIT practice includes such matters as representing REITs and contributors in connection with tax deferred roll-up transactions involving the receipt of common and custom-tailored preferred operating partnership units; representing clients selling projects to REITs in taxable transactions involving cash consideration or REIT securities; representing lenders providing financing to REITs for working capital and acquisition or development lines; and representing REITs in connection with joint ventures, purchase and sale transactions, development projects, credit facilities, mortgage and mezzanine loan investments and other matters.
Mr. Fileti is a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. While attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he was elected to the Order of the Coif.