One of the largest U.S.-based textile manufacturers recently relied on a Greenville, S.C. law firm for advice on acquiring a private equity fund’s portfolio company.

Milliken & Co. was advised by a legal team from Wyche, Burgess, Freeman & Parham on its acquisition of carpet maker Constantine LLC. Heading up the Wyche team was partner Kevin Hendricks, a former associate in Jones Day’s Atlanta office. The deal closed on Tuesday and terms weren’t disclosed.

Milliken, a privately held company that’s headquartered in Spartanburg, S.C., manufactures modular carpet, apparel, fabrics and chemicals. Constantine is based in Calhoun, Ga., and is owned by the Boston private equity fund Lineage Capital LLC. Constantine makes broadloom and modular carpet tile, as well as other types of floor-covering products.

Working with Hendricks on the Milliken deal were Wyche partner Cary Hall and associates John Harvey, Maurie Lawrence and Rita Barker, all located in Greenville. Ropes & Gray advised Lineage Capital.

Wyche, a 38-lawyer firm, has weathered the economic downturn well because there were few examples of companies and lenders in the Greenville area that became overextended leading up to the recession, Hendricks said.

“Greenville never went crazy in the last few years in terms of growth and massive deal flow,” Hendricks said.

With an even split between litigation and transactional work, Wyche is able to handle clients’ needs on most deals, in spite of its size, Hendricks said. Occasionally Wyche will partner with a Washington firm when a client needs specific regulatory advice.

The Wyche firm is known for its work in some specific areas. Founding partner Tommy Wyche has authored several books about the South Carolina mountains, and he helped lead the redevelopment of downtown Greenville, including the creation of a park centered on the Reedy River waterfalls. Wyche’s office is situated on a parcel overlooking the falls. The Wyche firm has also carved out a niche, led by partner Wallace Lightsey, as a specialist in representing architectural firms in copyright infringement litigation.

Two Atlanta-area attorneys and a Chicago lawyer were the primary legal advisers on last month’s multimillion-dollar sale of a Decatur megachurch. The sale came four months after the death of the church’s founder, Earl Paulk.

In the transaction, Chapel Hill Harvester Church Inc. sold its Cathedral at Chapel Hill building for $17.6 million to Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church Inc. The sale includes the church’s 300,000-square-foot, 6,000-seat auditorium and other facilities. The sale includes the 50 acres surrounding the cathedral. The church is located on Flat Shoals Parkway in south DeKalb County.

Burroughs Johnson Hopewell partner Robert Burroughs in Lithonia was outside counsel to Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church. Burroughs is a real estate attorney and has handled transactions involving residential, commercial and multifamily properties. Burroughs’ law partner, Mereda Davis Johnson, is married to U.S. Rep. Henry C. “Hank” Johnson Jr.

Matthew Wilkins of King & Yaklin in Marietta advised Chapel Hill Harvester Church, according to Brandi Paulk, executive administrator of the Cathedral at Chapel Hill. Wilkins, a litigator, serves as general counsel to Chapel Hill Harvester Church and the church did not hire an additional real estate attorney for work on the sale, Paulk said.

Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg partner Peter Barrow in Chicago advised the lead lender on the deal, Herring Bank of Amarillo, Texas.

Paulk, who died of cancer on Mar. 29 at the age of 81, founded Chapel Hill Harvester Church in 1972. The church experienced rapid growth and constructed its new building in 1991.

However, Paulk soon became ensnared in multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. In one case, Mona Brewer alleged that Paulk manipulated her into having an affair with him from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation and leading her to believe she was called to be in a sexual relationship with him in order to keep him and his ministry alive. Brewer sued Paulk, his brother, Don, and Chapel Hill Harvester Church.

In Feb. 2008, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott dismissed Brewer’s claims and ordered her to pay $1 million in attorney fees to the Paulks. But in February of this year, the state Court of Appeals reversed the lower court ruling.

The Atlanta firm Slutzky Wolfe & Bailey is representing a developer whose retail and movie theater complex near Hilton Head Island has fallen into foreclosure. 

Sea Turtle Entertainment LLC this month defaulted on a $23.5 million loan for its Berkeley Place shopping center in Bluffton, S.C., according to the Island Packet newspaper. Wells Fargo Bank has begun foreclosure proceedings against Sea Turtle, the Island Packet said, citing records in Beaufort County Circuit Court.

Slutzky Wolfe & Bailey commercial real estate partner Brad Wolfe is representing Sea Turtle in the matter, the paper said. Kilpatrick Stockton partner James Pulliam in Charlotte is counsel to Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo filed its complaint to initiate foreclosure on May 15.

Berkeley Place includes a movie theater and an Outback Steakhouse. The shopping center located in Bluffton, about 10 miles northwest of Hilton Head Island.

The M&A market isn’t dead. It’s just changed locations. Instead of the open marketplace, deals are getting done inside bankruptcy court. 

In a deal involving a bankrupt title insurance company, Miller & Martin partners Joe DeLisle and Nick Whittenburg advised an Alpharetta client on its purchase of four of the bankrupt company’s subsidiaries.

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., which is operating under Chapter 11, has agreed to sell two business units to Buyers Protection Group Inc. for $12.2 million, subject to post-closing price adjustments. The units being sold are LandAmerica Home Warranty, which is headquartered in Alpharetta, and LandAmerica Property Inspections. The deal has been approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin R. Huennekens of the Eastern District of Virginia. However, it still requires approval from California state insurance regulators, DeLisle said.

DeLisle and Whittenburg are counsel to BPG, along with associates Tim Silvis and Charles Elrod. All the Miller & Martin lawyers are based in Atlanta except Whittenburg, who’s based in Chattanooga, Tenn.

BPG was formed by Revell Fraser, who is the former president of the LandAmerica Financial subsidiaries, for the purpose of acquiring the assets from Glen Allen, Va.-based LandAmerica. Arkansas investment firm Stephens Group LLC is an investor in BPG along with Fraser.

DeLisle said that Miller & Martin had not previously done work for Fraser, and was brought into this assignment via a referral.

BPG was tapped as the “stalking horse” bidder in the bankruptcy court-supervised sale, DeLisle said. That meant that LandAmerica had tentatively accepted BPG’s initial offer to acquire the assets, subject to an auction process. After LandAmerica’s biggest rival title-insurance company, Fidelity National Financial Inc., submitted a higher offer during the May 11 auction, BPG increased its initial offer from $10 million to $12.2 million.

Lawyers from Willkie Farr & Gallagher’s New York office and from the Richmond, Va. office of McGuireWoods are debtor counsel to LandAmerica.

A group of Atlanta attorneys from Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker advised a struggling Florida bank on its acquisition by a private equity group after it was shut down by federal regulators.

In the deal, BankUnited Financial Corp. of Coral Gables, Fla., was acquired by a consortium of private equity funds, including WL Ross & Co., Carlyle Investment Management LLC, Blackstone Capital Partners and Centerbridge Capital Partners LP. Former North Fork Bancorp Chief Executive Officer John Kanas was also an investor and will become BankUnited’s new CEO.

The WL Ross/Kanas group beat out a competing offer by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and TD Bank, according to newsletter The Deal.

BankUnited had assets of $12.8 billion and deposits of $8.6 billion as of May 2. BankUnited’s failure will cost the FDIC about $4.9 billion.

The reorganized BankUnited will retain its status as the largest banking institution with a Florida headquarters, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It operates 86 branches primarily in south Florida.

Paul Hastings partner Walter Jospin was lead adviser to BankUnited’s board of directors. The Paul Hastings group was also regulatory and bankruptcy counsel to BankUnited’s holding company. Paul Hastings banking partner John Douglas and corporate partner Erik Belenky in Atlanta, and bankruptcy partner Richard Chesley in Chicago worked with Jospin.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom partners David Ingles and William Rubenstein in New York and William Sweet in Washington advised Kanas and WL Ross, Carlyle, Blackstone and Centerbridge. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett also advised Blackstone, Carlyle and Centerbridge. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz also advised WL Ross.

The BankUnited deal is the second acquisition of a bank by private equity investors this year. Banks have been failing in the U.S. at a rapid pace; BankUnited is the 34^th  bank insured by the FDIC to be closed this year.

Who says commercial real estate lawyers don’t have any work to do? Morris, Manning & Martin partner Vanessa Morris [photo, right] has a billing invoice to prove otherwise. Morris has been involved with the sale of two large Atlanta-area residential complexes in the past month. Morris advised the lender on both deals, which have a combined value of about $73 million.

On the first sale, Morris’s client was Primary Capital Advisors of Atlanta, which acted as the lender on the $25.8 million sale of the Block Lofts condo building [photo, below] on Ralph McGill Boulevard. The Connor Group, of Dayton, Ohio, acquired the property from Principal Real Estate Investors, a unit of Principal Financial Group Inc. Thompson Hine partner Darrel Davison in Columbus, Ohio, advised Principal.

In the second transaction, Morris was adviser to CBRE Capital Markets Inc., a unit of CB Richard Ellis Inc., the lender on the $47.4 million sale of Post Properties Inc.’s Post Dunwoody development. Post Dunwoody is a 530-unit complex on Peachtree-Dunwoody Road that was completed over several phases in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Post Dunwoody property was assessed at $33,252,900 in 2008, according to the Fulton County Tax Assessor’s office.

King & Spalding associate Amber Murray took the lead advising Post Properties, with supervision from partners Clay Howell and Dan Heller and with participation from Post in-house counsel Joe Bartlett. McClure & Kornheiser partner Michael Kornheiser represented the buyer, Dunwoody Station Apartments LLLP.

The economic downturn has put on ice a big mixed-use development in Avondale Estates. But Ted Sandler, lead counsel to the developer, thinks it won’t be long before the company gets back to work on the project.

Sandler, a partner at Hartman, Simons, Spielman & Wood, is advising Century Retail Corp. of Lakeland, Fla. on its development of Avondale Marketplace, a 375,000-square-foot retail-residential center in downtown Avondale Estates in central DeKalb County.

Century’s plans, which have been approved by the Avondale Estates city council, are ambitious, Sandler said. They include Publix [photo, below] as an anchor tenant, several other retailers and a large residential component. And, if the city council and mayor so choose, the development may also include a new location for the Avondale Estates city hall.

The Publix, to be clad in red brick, would front North Avondale Road, the main street of Avondale Estates, where it would have sidewalk access for pedestrians. Residential units would face Franklin Street, with the entrance to a parking deck on Lake Street. The four-block-wide shopping center would be located adjacent to the historic district of Avondale Estates, known for its Tudor-style architecture [photo, above].

Avondale Estates city leaders want the development to help the city diversify its tax base, which is heavily dependent on property taxes.

Sandler has been advising Century on various aspects of the project, including land acquisition, zoning and permitting, for a couple of years, he said. But the recession has slowed progress.

“We’ve been on hold for a while because of the gloom and doom that the country is experiencing,” Sandler said. Century, however, is actively raising money and expects to restart work soon, he said. Sandler declined to provide a timetable for the resumption of work.

Most of Century Retail’s developments are located in Florida, although the company has been expanding in Georgia. Century developed Old National Station in Clayton County and is in the process of developing four separate projects in Cobb County.

A story in last week’s Wall Street Journal was the talk of Atlanta’s commercial real estate community. The article points out that four trophy office towers nearing completion in Buckhead are, to put it lightly, struggling to find tenants.

Three buildings—3630 Peachtree, Two Alliance Center and Phipps Tower—are zero percent leased. Another, Terminus 200 [photo, right], is 9 percent leased.

These highly attractive properties are coming on line at a time when the market is flooded with vacant space. The metro Atlanta office market reported 300,000 square feet of net occupancy losses in 2008, according to a recent report by Jones Lang LaSalle. Developers will deliver another 3.2 million square feet of Class A office space to the Buckhead and Midtown markets over the next 18 months.

Deal Watch blog decided to track down the names of the attorneys who advised the developers and lenders on the four towers named in the Wall Street Journal piece.

We’ve already identified the law firms for two of the office towers in previous blog posts or in the print edition of the Daily Report. Arnall Golden Gregory partner Scott Fisher is counsel to Crescent Resources LLC, co-developer of Phipps Tower. Goulston & Storrs is counsel to the other development partner, Manulife Financial. The lead lender, Regions Bank, is taking advice from Hartman, Simons, Spielman & Wood partner Charlie Brake.

The 3630 Peachtree building, which includes the Ritz-Carlton Residences condo development, involved multiple developers, including Duke Realty, Pope & Land Enterprises, Novare Group and Post Properties. Among the lawyers working on that building are King & Spalding partners Clay Howell and Dan Heller, Atlanta solo practitioner Thomas Burch, Alston & Bird partners Gigi Bugg and Glenn Thomson and Seyfarth Shaw partner Carl Westmoreland.

So, who’s working on the other two?

Troutman Sanders partner Leslie Secrest is counsel to Cousins Properties Inc. on the Terminus 200 building, according to legal documents. Secrest did not return calls and emails seeking comment. Firm spokesman Mark Braykovich declined to comment.

Tishman Speyer Properties, developer of Two Alliance Center, is leaning on Atlanta-based in-house counsel Robert Stubbs and on Schulte Roth & Zabel partner Andrew Dady in New York, according to documents. Neither Stubbs nor Dady could be reached for comment.

The economy may be slumping, but teenagers and 20-year-olds keep attending college.

That’s helped Smith, Gambrell & Russell partner Mac Young maintain a steady stream of work for his client, Place Properties LP, which develops, finances and builds housing for college students.

One recent transaction Young handled was for a new on-campus housing facility at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville. Place Enterprises Development, an affiliate of Place Properties, arranged for the sale of $100 million in tax-exempt bonds to finance the dorms. The bonds were sold by the Georgia Gwinnett College Foundation and also involved the state Board of Regents. The bond sale closed on March 23. The new dorms are expected to open in the fall of 2010, Young said.

Smith Gambrell associate Jonathan Gallant worked with Young on the transaction. Young’s liaison at Place Properties is their general counsel, Jennifer Hill. King & Spalding partner Bill Holby was bond counsel and McKenna Long & Aldridge partner Tom Lauth was underwriters counsel to Citigroup Inc.

Also last month, Young advised Place Properties on arranging a $154.6 million financing deal for the construction of off-campus housing projects across the U.S. The financing involves eight separate lenders, Young said. The facilities will be built at off-campus sites near eight different colleges, including Texas A&M University, the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of Central Oklahoma. In addition to arranging the financing, Place is also the developer of these housing projects, Young said.

A tornado struck Americus in southwest Georgia on Mar. 7, 2007, killing two people, snapping in half a Georgia Public Television antenna tower and leveling cars and buildings.

Also among the wreckage was Sumter Regional Hospital, whose primary building was destroyed. Since then, the hospital has been operating out of modular buildings, offering urgent care and basic outpatient services.

The Americus and Sumter County Hospital Authority has also made plans to rebuild the hospital. That included hiring a Chicago investment bank to find a financial partner to either acquire the hospital or provide some other source of financing.

In October the Americus hospital authority reached a series of agreements, with the operator of Albany’s largest hospital, Phoebe Putney Health System Inc., to rebuild the hospital. Albany is located about 35 miles south of Americus.

Among the various deals reached, Phoebe Putney signed a 40-year lease and transfer agreement, under which it will manage Sumter Regional Hospital. Phoebe Putney also agreed to spend at least $25 million of its own money to rebuild the hospital.

Smith Moore Leatherwood partners Barry Herrin and Toby Watt in Atlanta are co-lead counsel to Sumter Regional Hospital and the hospital authority. Robert Baudino and Ken Hodges of the Baudino Law Group are advising Phoebe Putney; Baudino is based in Des Moines, Iowa, and Hodges is based in Atlanta. Hodges, by the way, is also running for the office of attorney general of Georgia. He is a former Dougherty County district attorney.

Also involved with the transaction are Phoebe Putney general counsel Tommy Chambless and Judge Michael Fennessy, counsel for the Americus and Sumter County Hospital Authority.

The total cost of rebuilding Sumter Regional Hospital has been estimated at about $125 million, Watt said. Phoebe Putney’s funds will be combined with insurance proceeds and future reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The parties expect the deal to close on July 1, pending approval from the Georgia Department of Law, pursuant to the Georgia Hospital Acquisition Act. Russ Willard, a spokesman for the department, said the department has not hired outside private attorneys to review the agreement. Staff attorney Shereen Walls is handling the review for the attorney general's office.

One reason the Americus hospital authority selected Phoebe Putney’s offer, which was one among several the authority received, was because of the Albany hospital’s financial strength, Watt said. Because FEMA won’t reimburse Phoebe Putney and Sumter Regional Hospital for rebuilding costs until after the money has been spent, the selected financial partner needed to have the financial capacity to withstand an extended period of time when the hospital would be waiting for FEMA reimbursement.