Gilbert G. Menna

Gil Menna is of counsel in the firm’s nationally recognized REITs and Real Estate M&A practice. He also participates in the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions, Capital Markets, Public Company Advisory, Real Estate Tax, and Private Investment Funds practices. Mr. Menna is a former member of Goodwin’s Management and Executive Committees and previously held the title of co-chair of the firm’s REITs and Real Estate M&A practice.

Mr. Menna is widely known for his long-standing commitment to and innovation in the publicly traded REIT sector and represents many of the nation’s leading publicly traded real estate operating companies in connection with their merger and acquisition, corporate finance and corporate governance matters. In addition, Mr. Menna also has significant experience representing public real estate companies and other sponsors as real estate investment managers in connection with their private equity capital and programmatic joint ventures.

For the past 14 years, Mr. Menna has captained Team Goodwin in the Pan-Mass Challenge, a charity bike ride raising money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He has participated in the Challenge for over 23 years, and in that time, Team Goodwin has raised over $1,800,000 for cancer research and treatment. Mr. Menna is also a board member of Shatterproof, a national non-profit organization dedicated to ending the devastation addiction causes families.

Mr. Menna has assisted clients in structuring and executing some of the highest profile and largest public real estate transactions in recent years, including M&A transactions and equity and debt offerings.

Most recently, he has represented:

• The Independent Directors of Two Harbors Investment Corp in connection with a process to become self-managed following the non-renewal and termination of its third-party external management agreement
• RPT Realty in connection with its newly formed, partially seeded programmatic joint venture with GIC Private Limited, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund
• Lincoln Property Company in connection with its strategic multifamily partnership with Cadillac Fairview, an affiliate of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan
• Tier REIT, Inc. in connection with its merger with Cousins Properties
• Brookfield Property Partners in connection with its $15.3 billion restructuring of General Growth Properties
• LaSalle Hotel Properties in its $5.2 billion acquisition by Pebblebrook Hotel Trust
• Monogram Residential Trust in connection with its structured $3 billion privatization transaction with Greystar and a consortium of foreign investors
• Underwriting syndicate in Invitation Homes’ $1.8 billion IPO, the largest U.S. IPO since October 2015 and the second largest REIT IPO ever
• MAA (Mid-America Apartment Communities, Inc.) in its $3.9 billion acquisition of Post Properties Inc., and, separately, in its$8.6 billion acquisition of Colonial Properties Trust, Inc.
• Paramount Group Inc. in connection with its $2.6 billion IPO, the largest IPO in the REIT industry ever
• Essex Property Trust in its $15.4 billion merger with BRE Properties, creating the third-largest multifamily REIT in the country
• CreXus Investment Corp in its $1 billion acquisition by Annaly Capital Management, Inc.
• Cole Credit Property Trust II in its $7.1 billion acquisition by Spirit Realty Capital, Inc.
• AvalonBay Communities, Inc. in its $16 billion acquisition (in joint venture with Equity Residential) of Archstone Enterprise LP

Mr. Menna is a Board Associate member of NAREIT, a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, and an Advisory Board member of the REIT Center at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate, a forum which was established in 1998 for the study and analysis of publicly traded REITs and REOCs. Mr. Menna is also a member of the REIT International Appeals Board (IAB).

Mr. Menna served for many years as an adjunct professor and lecturer in law at Columbia University, where he taught a structured workshop on real estate M&A and restructurings. He has also written and lectured extensively on topics involving real estate securities and mergers and acquisitions, as well as on tax law issues facing the real estate capital markets.

Mr. Menna has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America Best Lawyers for his work in Corporate Law and Real Estate Law 2022.

Mr. Menna has practiced in the real estate M&A and real estate securities market for over 37 years. He is credited with spearheading the creation of the first public UPREIT structure in the Taubman Centers, Inc. IPO in 1992. In 2010, during Nareit's 50^th anniversary, he was honored with the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions to the REIT market. He is annually recognized as a “Star Individual” in Nationwide REITs by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and was named to the Legal 500’s inaugural Hall of Fame list for his work in the public REIT sector. Mr. Menna has also been selected for inclusion in the Lawdragon 500, Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, U.S. News-Best Lawyers.