© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
(July 29) – Polsinelli recently announced it deepened its securities and corporate finance practice in Dallas by adding Robert Dockery as a shareholder. He joined from Akin Gump.
Dockery, whose practice includes an emphasis on REIT work, said he was attracted to Polsinelli’s “strong” national real estate practice.
“I was excited to have the opportunity to join a national law firm that had a dynamic and growing office in Dallas,” said Dockery, who, in the past year, represented an entertainment company in a $2.4 billion merger with another entertainment company.
The Texas Tech University School of Law graduate says a hot topic in his REIT practice is whether or not the industry will see more consolidation.
“Several analysts believe there are too many small to mid-size REITs and the industry is headed for consolidation similar to what happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s,” he said. “So far, that remains to be seen.”
Another point of discussion, he added, is REIT conversions, where corporations separate their real estate from their operations and place the real estate in a REIT. He says some of these conversions are driven by the “ever-expanding” use of the REIT structure for assets that are not traditionally considered to be real estate but which qualify as real estate based on IRS rulings.
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