Dentons recruits leading UK Real Estate Investment partner

Dentons has announced that Bonnie Calnan is to join the London Real Estate team as a Partner from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Her arrival will further strengthen the practice following a period of significant growth, including the recruitment of five partners from Irwin Mitchell in 2016, the addition of Maclay Murray & Spens’ real estate practice in 2017 and last year’s hire of development and transactional specialist Deepa Deb, also from BCLP.

Bonnie is experienced in a broad range of corporate real estate and multi-jurisdictional transactions, including structured disposals and acquisitions, joint ventures and financings in both the investment and development sectors. Her clients include private equity and debt funds and she has a particular emphasis on inbound investment into the UK and Europe as well as the alternatives sector including Hotels.

Her recruitment enhances Dentons’ strength in big ticket complex investment and the development arena, particularly the former where the Firm increasingly advises on large and complex UK transactions for both domestic and international clients.

Dentons Sector Head for Real Estate in the UK and Middle East, Rob Thompson, said, “Bonnie has an excellent reputation in the real estate investment market having acted on a number of high profile transactions and her arrival will help us to achieve our aim of becoming the UK’s leading practice for complex, structured real estate deals. Dentons is now firmly established as one of the UK’s go-to teams for investment, development and regeneration and hotels transactions and the international outlook of Bonnie’s practice also represents a perfect fit for our truly global real estate practice.”

Jeremy Cohen, Dentons CEO for the UK and Middle East, added, “We have been building our U.K. Real Estate practice both organically and through lateral hiring over the last few years. Our reputation continues to grow with clients increasingly choosing us for our deep knowledge of the global and national real estate markets.”

Evan Lazar, Co-Chairman, Global Real Estate and Global Vice-Chair added: “As real estate investment is one our Firm’s key global practices, Bonnie will help us serve and expand our global private equity and real estate investment clients.”