Robert’s areas of practice include complex real estate acquisitions, dispositions, and exchanges, corporate mergers and acquisitions, asset and mortgage securitization, business and real estate lending, tax credit financing, and the regulation of financial institutions and securities markets.
Bob is widely published and a frequent speaker on numerous topics, including “The Evolving Worldwide Legal and Regulatory Climate for Securitization,” for a meeting of the American Bar Association held in Brussels, Belgium; he is a contributing author of Commercial Real Estate Finance: A Current Guide to Representing Lenders and Borrowers, ABA.
Bob’s responsibilities at Blanchard, Krasner & French include advising individual investors, investment companies, and funds with complex real estate transactions, including acquisitions, sales, tax-deferred exchanges, financing, leasing, and development.
Bob also advises management and owners on corporate, limited liability company, and partnership matters, including formation, maintenance, financing, IP licensing, product distribution arrangements, business succession, mergers & acquisitions, dissolution, shareholder agreements, reorganizations, and disputes between owners.
His role also includes advising management and employees on various employment matters, such as executive employment agreements, employee benefit plans, wage disputes, harassment, and personnel policies and procedures.
Prior to founding Blanchard, Krasner & French, Bob was partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, and prior to that, a partner in the law firm of Seltzer, Caplan, Wilkins and McMahon, now known as Seltzer, Caplan, McMahon and Vitek, based in San Diego.
From 1986 to 1989. Bob was Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of Imperial Corporation of America, a NYSE-listed financial services holding company with assets in excess of $10 billion. Bob managed the company’s corporate equity investment portfolio, which included private equity investments totaling approximately $80 million, and was responsible for regulatory and securities compliance. Bob has served as a director for both non-profit and for-profit corporations.
Outside of work, Bob enjoys mountain climbing, sailing, and fishing.