BOCA RATON – May 17, 2019 – Marci H. Langley, a shareholder in the Boca Raton office of global law firm Greenberg Traurig, P.A., represented 160 Royal Palm LLC in the May 15 sale of the Palm House condominium/hotel on the island of Palm Beach to LR PALM HOUSE LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, for $39.6 million in cash.
LR PALM HOUSE LLC is a subsidiary of London & Regional Properties, a London-based real estate investment firm with a $12 billion portfolio that specializes in resort and commercial developments worldwide.
The sale of the property, which is the subject of a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, will result in approximately 80 investors and creditors – including the Town of Palm Beach – receiving a substantial portion of the money they are owed through a bankruptcy court-ordered sale of the company’s primary asset, according to Cary Glickstein, court-appointed manager and former court-appointed receiver for 160 Royal Palm LLC, the property owner.
“The sale of Palm House has been a complex, arduous process in which Greenberg Traurig real estate attorneys played an important role. Without this asset sale, investors - which include many foreign individuals – may not have recovered anything,” Glickstein said. “The number of creditors and volume of multi-jurisdictional litigation made the title analysis quite challenging, but proved vital in supporting the state court judge’s decision to expand the receiver’s authority to allow a bankruptcy filing as the only way to clear title and sell the property to repay investors and creditors, while also getting the property to a highly experienced resort developer that intends to move quickly to complete the development, which languished for over 10 years without a single hotel guest.”
Greenberg Traurig served as court-approved special real estate counsel, and, in addition to its title analysis, participated in the drafting and negotiation of the asset purchase agreement for the sale. Langley was assisted by Greenberg Traurig West Palm Beach office Associate Charles J. Abrams, as well as Robert Siesholtz and Michelle Clapp of Chicago Title, who helped address the project’s complex title issues. Langley also consulted with Greenberg Traurig Miami office Restructuring & Bankruptcy Practice Shareholder John B. Hutton III regarding the transaction.
“We were very pleased to have the opportunity to assist the client in providing Palm House with an outstanding future and the Town of Palm Beach with another exemplary resort,” said Langley, a member of Greenberg Traurig’s Real Estate Practice who handles sophisticated commercial real estate transactions. “Complexities, such as identifying all of the creditors and the other claims against the property made this representation unique. However, we knew that all of the research and analysis that we performed starting back in October of 2017 would ultimately be crucial to getting this sale past the finish line.”
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