Davis Polk partner and Real Estate co-head Brian Lichter was quoted in Law360 on the 2008 recession and the state of the market in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brian noted that in September 2008, nearly every deal he was working on went “into a frenzy.” In contrast, he explained that in 2020, “there was a bit more of a drum beat leading up to the fallout from the pandemic in late February into March of 2020” and that “the market began to turn in the last week of February and then, as the news of spikes got worse, offices made quick preparations to close. At the time, I was working on a large refinancing where some in the lender group got skittish, but we were able to get them across the finish line and close.”

Brian also explained that in 2020, “the capital markets were flying and investors were sitting on a lot of cash, so it wasn’t a question of whether there was money to do deals” and “the questions were more transformational — how will remote or hybrid work impact the office market in the future, where are people going to want to live going forward, what will the long-term impact be on business travel?”

“The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times: RE Attys Amid Crises,” Law360 (July 11, 2022) (subscription required)

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