Today’s article marks the halfway point in our alphabetical 50-state survey of sovereign immunity, as this installment covers Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Jersey.
FFA has published photos from the 12th annual Global Fund Finance Symposium in Miami. You can view them here.
Women in Fund Finance (WFF) U.S. is hosting a virtual panel on “Navigating ESG Communications: Strategies for Challenging Times” this Tuesday, February 28 at 11 a.m. EST. The panel will focus on ESG data, disclosure, and ratings/scoring and will explore how different types of data may be used for risk analysis/mitigation, strategic planning/value creation and stakeholder engagement/communication. Click here to register and for the speakers’ list.
With increasing demand for liquidity solutions, Goodwin has published a resource on reasons why fund managers are turning towards NAV financing and preferred equity tools. The resource offers a high-level summary on strategies, including the offensive and the defensive, as well as key considerations relating to the highly bespoke structures such as availability, pricing and LTV covenants/borrowing base. To read more, click here.
Lloyds Bank is looking to hire an Associate for its Financial Sponsors team in New York. For more information, visit here.
One of the best things about the FFA Global symposium is the opportunity to see and speak with so many members of the fund finance industry, including our wonderful clients. This year we rolled out a new concept, Fund Finance Friday Studios, which are recorded interviews with some of the most exciting and influential players in fund finance. Here are some of those conversations and we look forward to rolling out more of them soon. We thank everyone who participated and look forward to continuing this initiative and to speaking with more of you in the coming weeks and months ahead. Tune in here.
Cadwalader’s own fund finance partner Brian Foster moderated one of the four panels focused on NAV financing at this year’s Global Symposium, evidencing the growing relevance of NAV products in the fund finance market. The panel, titled “Secondaries and Continuations,” brought together a group of industry experts to discuss developments in the Secondaries market and the opportunities and challenges facing that market.
The panel on governance, underwriting and due diligence featured seasoned bankers Gino De Bernardo (Comerica), Mike Henry (US Bank) and Guy Simpson (Bridge Bank), experienced lawyers Anthony Pirraglia (Loeb & Loeb) and Joe O’Donnell (Morrison Foerster), and accomplished fund professional Mary Jo Sanderson (Värde Partners). The clear takeaway of this session was that strong relationships with sponsors, advance preparation, thorough and extensive due diligence on investors, the limited partnership agreement and side letters, and clear and comprehensive term sheets have proven to be best practices in deal execution of a lending facility to a private equity fund.
Against the backdrop of a changing landscape of fund finance providers and products, this session made for an insightful discussion of the challenges and opportunities our market faces. On the panel were Ana Arsov (Managing Director at Moody’s Investor Services), Mike Durnin (Principal at Ares Management), Greg Fayvilevich (Head of Global, Funds Group at Fitch Ratings), Ron Franklin (Partner at Proskauer), Marc Silva (Global Head of Private Equity Subscription & Partner Finance at UBS) and Sherri Snelson (Partner at White & Case).
Société Générale's Laurie Lawler did a wonderful job moderating last week’s panel titled “The Evolving Lender Landscape & Impacts on Balance Sheet Management.” The panel focused on the changing lender landscape, balance sheet management, and the entrance of non-bank lenders into the fund finance market.