Mike Szczurek is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is a member of the firm’s Real Estate Department.  He advises real estate developers, investors, funds, and lenders in all forms of real estate related transactions.

On the lending end of his practice, Mike is called upon by a broad variety of lending institutions in originating, buying, selling, enforcing, and restructuring mortgage, mezzanine, construction, ground lease, leased-fee, CMBS, balance sheet, Shari’ah compliant, syndicated, participated, and portfolio debt on a myriad of different project types and asset classes across the United States.  His representative lending clients include: Cantor Commercial Real Estate, Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies, Soros Fund Management LLC, the Related Companies, TPG RE Finance Trust, Annaly Commercial Real Estate Group, BRAVO Strategies, and Wells Fargo Bank.

Selected representative lender-side debt matters include:

• the origination of in excess of ~$1.4 billion of CMBS loans, including a $375 million mortgage loan on resort hotel in Hawaii and a $175.75 million 57-property leased-fee office property portfolio loan;
• the acquisition of ~$3.6 billion of mortgage loans for a national bank from a distressed European-based bank; and
• the negotiation and acquisition of ~$320 million of an overall ~$1.2 billion senior construction loan, as part of a $1.67 billion mortgage/mezzanine construction facility for two separate national fund investment advisors on an experience-based shopping mall project.

Additionally, Mike represents funds, developers, and everything from institutional to non-institutional to individual investors in acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, borrower-side financings, REIT formations and sales, and work-outs in a varied set of markets and for a comprehensive array of asset types, including raw land, student housing facilities, multi-family assets, hotels, office buildings, warehouses, and/or industrial projects.  His representative equity-side clients include: Highgate Holdings, Morgan Stanley, Scion Student Communities, AECOM Capital, Artemis Real Estate Partners, BRAVO Strategies, Cannae Partners, Fifteen Group, Fortress Investment Group, J.P. Morgan, Jamestown Properties, Karlin Real Estate, Kennedy Wilson, PCCP, Rockpoint, Stockbridge Real Estate Funds, the Related Companies, and Cain Hoy.

Selected representative equity matters include:

• a series of portfolio acquisitions, including asset, entity and REIT acquisitions totaling ~$2.7 billion of student housing facilities across the US for two sovereign wealth funds and a domestic operator;
• the structuring and sale of ~$250 million of REIT interests in warehouse facilities for a prominent private equity fund; and
• the sale of the former Hollywood Park site to the Los Angeles Rams for an undisclosed sum and subsequent development work on what has become the site of the new Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood, California.

In 2020, Mr. Szczurek was recognized as Daily Journal’s Top 40 under 40. Since 2015, Mike has been named one of Southern California’s “Rising Stars” by Southern California Super Lawyers – Rising Stars Edition.  Additionally, in 2018, he was separately recognized by each of Law360 and Euromoney Legal Media Group as a Rising Star in Real Estate, an honor given to Law360‘s top six and Euromoney Legal Media Group’s top eight real estate attorneys under the age of 40.

Mike received his Juris Doctor in 2009 from the University of Southern California, where he served on the Executive Board for the Hale Moot Court Honors Program and received a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude from The College of New Jersey with a major in Business Administration in 2006.  He is a member of the State Bar of California and has been admitted to practice before the United District Court for the Central District of California and is also a frequent guest lecturer on a variety of real estate related topics at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law.