DLA Piper sells its partner-led real estate team of five lawyers in Rome to Italian giant Gianni & Origoni. Gianni & Origoni is building real estate capabilities in Italy, where the sector is booming.
Filippo Cecchetti, an expert in real estate and corporate law, will join Gianni’s real estate department in Rome, jointly leading the work with partners Davide Braghini and Domenico Turri.
He arrives with his current team, which includes attorneys Eleonora Laurito and Giulia Minetti Floccari, and associates Filippo Cohen and Gregorio Calabresi.
As part of his role, Cecchetti will focus, among other things, on developing the company’s international real estate business, Gianni said in a statement announcing the move.
Cecchetti spent 15 years practicing with Gianni’s Italian rival Chiomenti before joining the DLA Piper as a partner in 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile, before being promoted to partner. According to his LinkedIn profile, Laurito and Minetti Floccari also practiced at Chiomenti before he joined DLA Piper.
Along with BonelliErede and Chiomenti, Gianni is one of Italy’s most profitable law firms.
The move comes less than a year after the DLA lost its seven-strong private equity team to Madrid’s Squire Patton Boggs.
Tulli said in a statement:
In this context, Filippo’s arrival will strengthen our ability to help our customers seize and develop market opportunities. “
Mr Braghini added that the participation of Cecchetti and his team “supports our strategy to strengthen and further strengthen our position in the real estate sector”.
Real estate is the fastest growing sector in Italy, a practitioner told Law.com International. There has been strong interest from international investors, especially those paying in strong dollars without the need for bank loans.
Sectors of particular interest include infrastructure supported by generous government-backed loans to promote energy efficiency, and the growth of e-commerce in Italy during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, spurring Including costly logistics.
M&A is also experiencing high-end, selective growth, experts say, for much the same financial reasons.
Gianni has over 430 lawyers and five offices in Italy, plus offices in New York, London, Brussels, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi. The company has been busy with hiring. Last October he lost his six-man tax team to Withers, and in June he picked up his five-lawyer tax team in Milan from CMS.
DLA Piper did not respond to requests for comment at the time of this article’s publication.