Latifa El Shafei

Latifa El Shafei is an associate in Goodwin’s Real Estate Industry group. Her practice focuses on real estate finance, acting for a range of sponsor, borrower and lender clients in relation to domestic and cross-border transactions.

Her representative experience includes:

• Blackstone:
  • and the consortium consisting of Scape Living and iQSA on the £969 million recommended cash offer for GCP Student Living plc*
  • on the c. £1.2 billion recommended cash offer for St Modwen Properties plc*
  • on the financing of its acquisition of Bourne Leisure, which operates Butlins, Haven and Warner Leisure Hotels*
  • on the refinancing of a prime central London office property*
  • on the £4.66 billion acquisition of iQ Student Accommodation*
  • on the recommended £4.77 billion cash offer for publicly traded Merlin Entertainments, a global leader in location-based, family entertainment*
  • on the financing of its acquisition of National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Group, a leading live events venue operator in the UK*

• GIC:
  • on the financing of a portfolio of urban logistics assets located in Ireland*
  • on the over $1 billion financing with Equinix to develop and operate xScale™ data centres in Japan*
  • on the €950 million financing aspects of a pan-European logistics platform from Apollo*
  • on the financing for its $1 billion joint venture with Equinix Inc. to develop and operate hyperscale data centres throughout Europe*

• GLP:
  • on the financing of the development of a portfolio of English, French and German logistics properties located in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain*
  • on the financing of its c.€1 billion acquisition of Goodman Group’s CEE logistics portfolio*

• Brookfield:
  • on the financing of its acquisition of a portfolio of UK retail parks*
  • on the financing of its acquisition of ECLA Paris , a 1,200 bed high-end student accommodation campus in Southern Paris*
• AXA Investment Managers – Real Assets on the acquisition of the Kadans Science Partner platform*
• Bain Capital Credit on the c. €124 million term loan financing of its c.€183 million (in aggregate) acquisitions from several Italian banks of several portfolios of “unlikely-to-pay” loans secured by real estate*

*Denotes experience prior to joining Goodwin.

Kirkland & Ellis International LLP, London

• Associate (2018-2022)

Brodies LLP, Edinburgh

• Solicitor (2017-2018)
• Trainee Solicitor (2015-2017)