Leading global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer announced today that Francesco Sanna and Vanessa Boato will be joining the firm as partners, establishing a new Real Estate practice in Milan.
Francesco, who will lead the new practice, is widely recognised as a leading real estate lawyer in the Italian market. He has extensive experience in structuring complex real estate investment and development transactions and in providing strategic advice on core and value-add real estate transactions.
A planning lawyer, Vanessa’s practice focuses on administrative, town planning and public procurement transactions as well as on litigation before Administrative Courts and arbitration boards. She advises a broad range of clients, including domestic and international private companies, real estate funds, public bodies and joint ventures.
Francesco and Vanessa join the firm with a team comprising Anna Amprimo, who joins as of counsel, and senior associates Tania Ciccarese, Jacopo Rugginenti and Elisa Nadia També, and trainee Alessia Rocchi.
Their combined capabilities across private equity, real estate development, town planning and the full range of commercial asset classes highly complement the practice of Banking & Finance partner Emanuela Da Rin, who regularly advises on real estate finance matters. Together, they will strengthen the firm’s ability to offer integrated real estate solutions to clients across Italy and Europe.
Laura Orlando, Managing Partner of Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer’s Milan office, said: “Having worked together for 20 years, Francesco, Vanessa, Anna and team have built a strong reputation in the Italian real estate market. Their arrival gives us immediate scale and a highly credible real estate offering in Italy from day one and represents another significant milestone as our Milan office continues to advance towards a full-service model. A warm welcome to Francesco, Vanessa, Anna and team.”
Matthew White, Managing Partner, Real Estate, UK EMEA, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, commented: “The addition of Francesco, Vanessa, Anna and team reflects our continued investment in our market-leading global Real Estate platform. With an increasing scale of cross-border platform transactions, and demand for data centre and infrastructure-related expertise increasing across the EMEA region, their capabilities significantly enhance the depth of our offering and our ability to support clients on complex, multi-jurisdictional mandates across the full real estate lifecycle.”
Francesco Sanna said: “Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer’s institutional investor client base and global platform make it the ideal firm for me, Vanessa and the team to grow and expand our practices. We are excited to be joining the firm and look forward to developing and working on cross-border client opportunities with our colleagues.”
The launch of the firm’s Real Estate practice in Milan comes less than a year after the launch of the firm’s Employment practice under the leadership of Lorenzo Fusco and the arrival of Banking & Finance partner Emanuela Da Rin and team in November 2025. These hires demonstrate further investment in the Milan office following the promotion of Emily Bottle to partner in the IP practice and the lateral hire of partner Augusto Santoro with a four-strong team in 2023.
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer is the only firm ranked Band One in Chambers’ leading Real Estate tables for London, New York and Australia. Recent transactions that the firm has advised on include:
- Logicor on the sale of a c. €350 million pan-European logistics portfolio, comprising 13 assets located across Poland, Germany, Netherlands, France and the UK to Greykite European Real Estate Fund.
- EdgeConneX on its 50/50 partnership with property group Stockland to develop, own, and operate an Australian portfolio of data centres. The partnership will leverage Stockland’s portfolio of assets across Australia to develop hyperscale data centres, by combining EdgeConneX’s global experience in providing data centre solutions to cloud and AI providers with Stockland’s land, development, and project management expertise.
Related Companies and other stakeholders on Hudson Yards, the largest private real estate development in U.S. history, including the creation of its governing condominium structures and the joint casino licence bid by Related and Wynn Resorts.
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