Osborne Clarke (OC) has strengthened its City real estate team with the hire of Norton Rose's urban regeneration head.

Rajindh Mangat joined OC this week (8 June) as the firm's first partner to focus on urban regeneration work and the eighth partner in the City real estate team.

Mangat, who made partner at Norton Rose in 2001 and left the firm at the end of May, specialises in corporate real estate, as well as Islamic real estate finance and the property aspects of renewable energy projects, and his clients include Kier Group and Barratt.

OC real estate and infrastructure head Leona Briggs commented: "There is huge potential for us in the practice area of urban regeneration. A number of our clients are already involved in this type of work and now I'm sure even more will be now that we have Rajindh on board."

She added: "We're an attractive proposition for people like Rajindh because while a number of firms are looking at pulling back their real estate practices we've made it one of our four priority sectors."

Mangat is OC's second significant hire in a month, after the firm appointed a new head of financial regulation with the hire of Addleshaw Goddard legal director David Blair in May.

OC also last month announced the promotion of five lawyers to partner in the firm's largest partnership round since 2007, alongside an 8% upturn in revenues for the 2010-11 financial year.