February.27.2015
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (“Orrick”) recently closed the sale of a 126,800 square foot creative office space campus in Culver City, California on behalf of investor syndicates (the “HCP Entities”) sponsored by Hackman Capital Partners (“HCP”). The campus serves as headquarters of popular headphone, speaker and music streaming company Beats by Dr. Dre, which signed a long-term lease for 109,000 square feet of office space last year, just a few months before being acquired by a Leading Tech Company (U.S.) in a $3 billion deal. The sale also includes an additional 17,800-square-foot property occupied by digital marketing firm Steel House Inc.
A HCP Entity had purchased the properties in 2007 and had made significant investments to reposition the light industrial and office space into a state-of-the-art, creative office environment, which was rewarded the National American Institute of Architects Award for Interior Architecture in 2015. Orrick had been advising the HCP Entities in connection with the ownership and management for the properties for several years, including an additional capitalization transaction, involving additional equity and a replacement bridge financing for the construction of a parking garage and significant renovations to the buildings.
The recent sale concludes a successful and complex investment sponsored by HCP who has been focused on the revitalization of the Culver City community for more than a decade and made news last year with the acquisition by another HCP-sponsored entity of the historic Culver Studios film and television studio complex. Dennis Martin, Orrick’s relationship partner for HCP, commented that there were “lots of twists and turns in this deal, but the one constant is there was no shortage of creativity, effort and enthusiasm on the part of HCP to achieve these phenomenal results.” Orrick has a longstanding relationship with Los Angeles based HCP, a privately-held investment firm that sources key opportunities in both real estate and equipment marketplaces.
In addition to Dennis Martin, the Orrick team over the years for these properties has included Nicole Walsh, Micaela de Cardenas, Randy Perry, Katie Jones, Yinka Ajagunna and Jasmine Tzeng as well as tax partner Grady Bolding.