Hogan Lovells and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have acted on M&G Real Estate's £315m acquisition of London's Bankside development from Land Securities Group.

Bankside – situated on the Southbank next to the Tate Modern Gallery – comprises 380,000 sq ft of office accommodation let entirely to The Royal Bank of Scotland until 2027 and 73,000 sq ft of retail space let to several retailers, including Marks & Spencer, WH Smith, Pret a Manger and Starbucks.

Hogan Lovells advised existing client M&G Real Estate fielding a team led by partner Daniel Norris with support from infrastructure and project finance partner Gillian Thomas and tax partner Kevin Ashman.

Freshfields acted for Land Securities with a team led by real estate partner Chris Morris.

Land Securities overhauled its legal panel in February this year following a review of the property company's external advisers. Hogan Lovells won a spot on the newly created 'A' panel alongside existing advisers Berwin Leighton Paisner, Eversheds, Freshfields and Nabarro.

Firms in this category will be awarded a greater volume of the £18m-£20m annual legal spend than those on the 'B' panel, on which Herbert Smith Freehills won a place alongside Dundas & Wilson.

BLP and Hogan Lovells advised M&G Real Estate in July on the restructuring of its £580m UK pooled pension property fund.

M&G Real Estate is the real estate investment arm of M&G Investments, part of the Prudential Group, and was until recently known as PRUPIM. The restructuring saw the assets of Prudential Pensions transferred into a new vehicle which will make the fund more accessible to investors targeting UK property.