Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier advises Unibail-Rodamco on its acquisition of Westfield to create Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the premier global developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations

Following the announcement on December 12, 2017 of the execution of an agreement to combine Unibail-Rodamco and the Westfield group, Unibail-Rodamco announced that it has completed the acquisition of Westfield.

Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier acted as the lead legal adviser of Unibail-Rodamco on its acquisition of Westfield and on the listing of the new Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield group creating the world’s premier developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations with a portfolio valued at €62 billion and a market cap at completion of €26.8 billion. The new group’s stapled shares are listed on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam (Euronext ticker: URW) with a secondary listing established in Australia through Chess Depositary Instruments (CDIs).

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield stapled shares each comprise one Unibail-Rodamco share and one share in a newly formed Dutch company, which holds Westfield’s US operations and selected Dutch property assets. This innovative structure represents the first listing of stapled shares in France in more than 30 years, the first listing of stapled French and Dutch entities and the first listing of a French entity in Australia (in the form of CDIs). The group benefits from the French, US and Dutch REIT regimes.

The DVMB team includes Marcus Billam, Hugo Diener and Laurent Gautier (partners), Christopher Grey (senior associate), Jean-Guillaume Meunier (associate), Ioana Nicolas (associate), Christophe-Marc Juvanon (associate), Romain Querenet de Breville (associate), Olivia Goudal (associate), Martin Lodeon (associate) and Paul Bertrand (associate) on corporate, M&A and capital markets aspects, together with Ben Burman (partner) advising on US securities law, Igor Simic (partner) and Elise Maillot (associate) advising on competition law aspects, with Martin Lebeuf (partner) and Martin Grange (associate) advising on financing aspects.