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Darren Craig

Office Managing Partner

CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Saltire Court
20 Castle Terrace
Edinburgh
EH1 2EN
United Kingdom
Languages English

Darren Craig, Managing Partner in CMS Edinburgh, is a partner in the Banking & Finance Group and also heads up the Scottish Property Finance team. He has experience of all forms of property and real estate finance work, acting for both funders and borrowers alike.

His “good sense of humour” and willingness to “work through the night to get a deal done”, have had him identified by clients in Chambers UK as "a rising star". Darren’s knowledge of the funding aspects of property transactions allow him to bring additional skills to corporate, restructuring and PFI/infrastructure projects, where he has provided property support on a variety of deals.

He has also gained considerable experience in the renewables sector, acting in a variety of windfarm, solar and hydro project finance transactions for among others, Close Leasing Limited, Santander and HSBC. 

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Property finance expert Darren Craig is ‘knowledgeable and easy to work with’

Legal 500, 2015

Relevant experience

  • Provision of funding and security advice on the acquisition, development and letting of student accommodation in Glasgow city centre.
  • Scottish Borders Housing Stock Transfer to Scottish Borders Housing Association advising the funder on all aspects of diligence, security and streamlining of the registration process of circa 20,000 social housing stock with Registers of Scotland.
  • The restructure and refinance of several trading hotels in Aberdeen and Edinburgh with a combined senior and mezzanine debt package of circa GBP 33m.
  • Facilities of up to GBP 52.6m by a UK clearing bank to the Drum property group, in connection with the development of 3 separate phases of the Prime Four Business Park development in Kingswells, Aberdeen.
  • GBP 40m facilities provided to James Keiller Investments and its group by Santander UK Plc to allow it to restructure its debt facilities over circa 90 properties, representing the biggest Scottish corporate real estate deal by the bank at that point.
  • Provision of funding by Bank of Scotland on the refinance of a mixed portfolio of circa 100 properties to be delivered in tight timescales and on budget.
  • Close Leasing Limited advisers on a number of FiT and RoC projects, comprising onshore small to medium scale windfarms, hydro schemes and solar, including the largest solar farm in the UK.
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Education

  • 2008 - QLTT English Transfer Qualification attained with The College of Law
  • 1999 – Law, DipLP, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
  • 1998 - Law, LLB (Hons), University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
  • Dual qualified in Scots and English law.
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Feed

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The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act – what this will...
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CMS ADVISES BANK OF IRELAND ON FUNDING FOR LANDMARK ST VINCENT STREET ACQUISITION
International law firm CMS has advised Bank of Ireland (BoI) on its £29m funding for the acquisition of landmark office building, 110 St Vincent Street in Glasgow by Inmark Asset Management and its investors...
15/02/2016
Don’t be a fool on 1 April…
From 1 April 2016, the General Register of Sasines will close to standard securities. This will have important consequences for real estate finance transactions in Scotland. Why is this change happening...