Seyfarth Shaw Announces Establishment of Covered Bonds Team
Specialized Attorneys Help Clients Understand and Capitalize on
Emerging Investment Opportunity in the United States
NEW YORK (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) November 6, 2008 --
Seyfarth
Shaw LLP, one of America’s leading full-service
law firms, today announced that it has established a Covered Bonds
Team to assist clients with covered bond offerings addressed by the
United States Treasury Department, as a possible new source of mortgage
financing in the U.S. The team will help clients assess the viability of
this product in their particular circumstances while factoring in
current market conditions. The firm’s team
consists of corporate,
real
estate and tax
attorneys across the country who bring a wide-range of experience
and insight to the team.
The Covered Bonds Team will work under the direction of Shirley
Curfman, partner in the Corporate
Practice Group in the firm’s Los
Angeles office, and Nanette
Heide, partner in the Corporate
Practice Group in the firm’s New
York office. Curfman,
who recently joined the firm’s Los
Angeles office, has provided legal advice in the structured
finance market for over 10 years and served as legal counsel to the
mortgage bond indenture trustee in one of only two covered bond
transactions in which U.S. financial institutions issued bonds. Heide’s
practice focuses on corporate and financing transactions, including equity
and debt financings, mergers
and acquisitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures and commercial
transactions. Curfman
and Heide
are joined by other attorneys in the Corporate
and Real
Estate Practice Groups, including Peter
Korda and Andrew
Pearlstein.
“Seyfarth
Shaw is well-positioned to help clients understand and initiate
covered bonds offerings,” Heide
said. “Drawing on experience in structured
finance, as well as Shirley’s
insights into the structure of covered bonds, we are ready to meet
the needs of our clients in this expanding market.”
Covered bonds are debt securities backed by cash flows from mortgages or
public sector loans. In many ways, they are similar to asset-backed
securities created in securitization, but covered bond assets remain on
the issuer’s consolidated balance sheet.
Covered bonds have been the main source of mortgage funding in Europe
since the 18th century, but to date, only two
U.S. depository institutions have issued covered bonds. The U.S.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation have been promoting a covered bond market strategy as an
attractive source for funding residential mortgage loans. As a
complement to the policy statement previously issued by the FDIC, the
Treasury Department recently issued a best practices guide to
specifically address covered bonds backed by pools of eligible
residential mortgages.
“I’m pleased that
covered bonds, long utilized in Europe, are making their way into the
U.S. market as an additional funding source for mortgage loans,”
Curfman
added. “We have the resources, skills, and
experience with covered bonds to work with lenders to effectively
structure these financing
vehicles.”
Seyfarth
Shaw is a full-service law firm with over 750
attorneys located in nine offices throughout the United States
including Chicago,
New
York, Boston,
Washington
D.C., Atlanta,
Houston,
Los
Angeles, San
Francisco and Sacramento,
as well as Brussels,
Belgium. The firm provides a broad range
of legal services in the areas of real estate, labor
and employment, employee
benefits, litigation
and business
services. Seyfarth Shaw’s practice
reflects virtually every industry and segment of the country’s
business and social fabric. Clients include over 200 of the Fortune
500 companies, financial institutions, newspapers and other media,
hotels, health care organizations, airlines and railroads. The firm also
represents a number of federal, state, and local governmental and
educational entities. For more information, please visit www.seyfarth.com.
See the original story at: http://eon.businesswire.com/releases/covered_bond/seyfarth_shaw/prweb1580794.htm
Post Comment: Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/WmV0YS1Qcm9mLUNyYXMtU2luZy1UaGlyLVNpbmctWmVybw==
Bookmark -
Del.icio.us |
Furl It |
Technorati |
Ask |
MyWeb |
Propeller |
Live Bookmarks |
Newsvine |
TailRank |
Reddit |
Slashdot |
Digg |
Stumbleupon |
Google Bookmarks |
Sphere |
Blink It |
Spurl
|