Bert Bender focuses on the investment in and financing of commercial real estate assets, with extensive experience in portfolio transactions, acquisitions, joint ventures, sales, mortgage lending and development. Featured as a leading Georgia lawyer for real estate in Chambers USA, The Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers magazine, he has written or spoken on a variety of real estate practice matters, including mezzanine loan workouts, joint venture documentation, equity participation lending, acquisition and sale documentation, workout strategies, opinions of counsel, loan negotiation strategies, joint venture remedies and alternative fee arrangements. At the firm, he chairs the New Business Acceptance Committee and serves as counsel coordinator. As an eagle scout, Bert is an active community volunteer, having served in various roles in his church (including senior warden) and significant scouting leadership roles, ranging from cub master to adult leader trainer, to Atlanta area council executive board member and national program drafting and committees.
- Represented a major pension fund investor in the creation of “mixing bowl” joint ventures with a publicly held REIT, having a valuation of over a billion in assets, established for the ownership of multistate portfolios of retail malls, office buildings and the development of future real estate assets.
- Represented a major insurance company lender in numerous multistate portfolio financings of pools of office, retail, industrial and senior housing assets.
- Hundreds of loan transactions with more than $4 billion in mortgage debt for insurance companies covering retail, office, industrial, senior living and multifamily properties from New England through the Southeast to California and Hawaii.
- More than 100 significant sale transactions for major institutional holders of real estate assets, including banks and insurance companies, covering office, retail, mixed use, industrial, senior living and multifamily properties from across the country, including significant office building sales in major metropolitan centers.
- Counsel to an owner of regional malls in connection with the workout of a complex stack of CMBS debt.
- Handled workouts of mezzanine loan interests held by an investor in Arizona, Atlanta and other office developments.
- Representing the U.S. developer/seller and its international owners in the $380 million sale of 21 apartment projects in 10 jurisdictions, with stock investment in the buyer as a portion of consideration to the seller.
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One hundred and forty-seven Alston & Bird attorneys have been selected for inclusion in the 2013 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. The publication is universally regarded as among the few definitive guides to legal excellence, and its rankings are based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 36,000 leading attorneys cast almost 4.4 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas.
September 18, 2012
In the Press
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September 12, 2011
In the Press
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August 30, 2010
In the Press
- Mortgage Bankers Association
- NAIOP (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties)
- International Council of Shopping Centers
- American Bar Association (Real Property Section)
- State Bar of Georgia
- Atlanta Bar Association
- Former member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law in 1983.
- Phi Beta Kappa, 1980.