Fairway A.A.R.P.I.

The firm

Fairway was founded on 1 January 2011 by Frédéric Lefébure, Emmanuel Cazin and Pierre Emmanuel Fonteilles, to focus on providing high-quality, cost-effective advice to companies in the real estate industry. The firm has grown rapidly over the past three years, with the selective hiring of senior-level attorneys hand-picked from large French and international law firms. In June 2021, barely 9 months after the creation of its Restructuring Department and the arrival of Matthieu Barthélemy, Fairway has decided to accelerate its development by welcoming Sandrine Benaroya, specialized in Corporate – Private Equity, as a partner of the Firm. With this arrival, Fairway, a French and independent business law firm already recognized as a key player in the real estate industry, has decided to pursue its growth beyond this industry alone by taking a new step dedicated to the Corporate M&A market.

Our expertise

The firm’s strategy is to meet sophisticated clients’ demands for excellence, commercial knowledge of their industry and a valuable service through dedicated partners assisted by a limited number of closely supervised associates. Clients appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit of the team combined with its dedication to the delivery of customised, creative and high-quality services. Fairway provides a variety of services relating to complex real estate transactions, leasing and financing, as well as the structuring and formation of investment funds including regulated funds like OPPCIs. The same applies to all industrial and investment operations requiring expertise in Corporate M&A – Private Equity & Restructuring.

Fairway has built close relationships with correspondent firms which share the firm’s values of excellence, a client-orientated approach.

As the firm is not bound to any global network, it can adapt and specifically choose to work with the most appropriate firm, depending on the matter and the transaction. Clients therefore benefit from Fairway’s experience on large international transactions and have a single point of contact ensuring cross-border operations are managed and operated on in an efficient manner.

The firm’s ability to provide sophisticated tax advice, in addition to substantive real estate advice, is a factor that distinguishes the firm from others in the French market.

Areas of practice

Fairway is a unique law firm in Paris.

Its real estate sector focus, together with its full service range of legal capacities, enables the firm to assist all market players, French and overseas  financial institutions, investment funds, listed or unlisted real estate investment companies, asset managers, developers and others involved in construction projects, landlords and tenants, business and industrial companies, large corporates and public bodies  in every phase of real estate industry matters, from tax and transactional structuring to financing and development and crisis management, , transfer, partnership and joint venture.

Fairway considers there to be two kinds of real estate: (i) real estate seen as a financial product, and (ii) real estate seen as an industrial means, which allows it to operate in the Corporate-M&A market and to have access to other operations not necessarily related to the real estate sector. The firm’s expertise covers all legal needs for this dual industry and all its classes of assets (industrial complex, warehouses, offices, shopping centres and commercial buildings, residential, hotels, student housing, sports and leisure facilities, cinemas, port and airport centers, etc.) as well as all sectors of Corporate M&A (industrial, investment funds, private equity, restructuring, financing, etc.).

With 11 partners and 25 associates, Fairway is undoubtedly the Parisian firm with the largest number of lawyers dedicated to the real estate industry, also covering the Corporate M&A market.