Overview
Jeff Bankowitz currently serves as a partner in the firm’s Real Estate practice group. He has experience representing clients on all sides of real estate transactions, including purchases and sales, mortgage secured financing, leasing transactions, entitlements, and construction contracts. He has also drafted and negotiated joint venture agreements and corporate organization documents and has extensive experience representing buyers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions.
Following his graduation from the Florida State University College of Law in 2001, he joined a well-respected Orlando law firm and concentrated his practice on representing clients in all manner of commercial real estate transactions. In 2011, Jeff joined BBA Aviation plc as Senior Legal Counsel for Signature Flight Support Corporation. In 2013, he became General Counsel for BBA Aviation’s Flight Support Division providing strategic counsel and advice to all business functions with significant focus on transactional matters including real estate leasing and development, mergers and acquisitions, and the negotiation of the company’s general commercial agreements. He also directed strategies for all company litigation including employee claims, class actions, property damage and personal injury cases, and general litigation matters. He routinely interacted with governmental authorities and regulators at the local, state, and federal levels and had responsibility for corporate governance and compliance matters.
Jeffrey graduated, cum laude, from Wake Forest University in 1998. In 2001, he graduated with high honors from Florida State University College of Law, where he served on the Florida State University Law Review and the Journal of Transnational Law and Policy. While in law school he interned at the Florida Supreme Court for Chief Justice Charles Wells.
Experience
- Acted as outside general counsel for a full-service aviation company whose lines of business include fixed base operations, FAA Part 145 maintenance, and FAA Part 135 operations.
- Handled all legal aspects of several complex build to suit ground leases involving a national automobile retailer, including acquisition and development matters.
- Closed the record setting sale by a family trust of hundreds of acres in Lake County, Florida.
- Has advised a leading industrial/warehouse project developer with respect to the acquisition and development of several projects throughout Central Florida.
- Represented startup company founders with respect to private equity investment in excess of $75,000,000.
- Negotiated the acquisition of an aviation services company owning approximately sixty fixed base operations throughout North America for approximately $2.1 billion in February 2016, including handling the Hart-Scott-Rodino filing for the transaction, leading the effort in the Americas to fulfill conditions precedent, and the integration of the legal department following closing.
- Negotiated and drafted documents for a complex FBO development at a major international airport with a total cost of $82 million, including the airport master lease, sublease for the construction of more than 250,000 square feet of hangars and related facilities, property management agreement, worldwide fuel supply agreement, and construction contract.
- Negotiated the divestiture of a commercial aviation ground handling and fueling company for $202 million.
- Led internal legal review of mergers and acquisition activity with a cumulative value of approximately $500 million, including review of due diligence, negotiation of definitive agreements, fulfilling conditions precedents, obtaining executive approvals, handling regulatory filings, and development of transition plans.
- Negotiated and drafted complex joint venture agreements, ground leases, development agreements, executive employment agreements, purchase and sale agreements, and aviation services agreements.
- Directed litigation strategies in diverse circumstances including class actions, environmental matters, government procurement, employee claims, property loss, and personal injury.
Honors & Recognitions
- Listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Real Estate Law (since 2021)
- Listed in Orlando Magazine, Best Lawyers (2021)
Newsroom
News
Paralegal/Assistant
Legal Practice Assistant
Deanne Claiborne
(407) 540-6639
dclaiborne@burr.com