Willkie client Ventas, Inc., the leading healthcare real estate investment trust (REIT) in the United States, recently announced it has completed its acquisition of Cogdell Spencer Inc. and its 72 high quality medical office buildings for approximately $770 million in cash, including debt. The deal, which was announced on December 27, 2011, expands Ventas’s medical office building business to over 20 million square feet. Ventas, Inc., an S&P 500 company, has a diverse portfolio of more than 1,300 assets in 47 states and two Canadian provinces, consisting of seniors housing communities, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, medical office buildings and other properties. Charlotte-based Cogdell Spencer focuses on planning, owning, developing, constructing and managing medical facilities.

Leading law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP is pleased to announce the addition of three attorneys to the firm’s national Labor & Employment Department, fortifying the firm’s extensive group of labor lawyers, and continuing Seyfarth’s expansion of more than 100 new attorneys hired within the past 18 months in the department. Partners Cliff Fonstein and  Nicholas H. De Baun and associate Tara Conroy have joined Seyfarth’s New York office from Sidley Austin LLP.

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP represented Covanta Holding Corporation in connection with a registered public offering of $400 million of 6.375% Senior Notes due 2022, and Covanta Energy Corporation and its subsidiaries in connection with a new senior secured term loan facility in the amount of $300 million, maturing in 2019, and a senior secured revolving credit facility in the amount of $900 million, terminating in 2017.