LAWYER
Jeffrey M. Katz
Partner | New York
Jeffrey M. Katz

Jeffrey M. Katz advises agents, lenders, borrowers and equity sponsors on a wide range of domestic and cross-border leveraged finance transactions. Mr. Katz has extensive experience in private financings, including secured and unsecured credits, workouts, recapitalizations, acquisition financings, debtor-in-possession financings, cross-border transactions and intercreditor issues, as well as asset-based and cash-flow based lending transactions and an array of structured financings. Mr. Katz’s practice is deeply integrated with Dechert’s Restructuring and Litigation groups.

Mr. Katz advises on complex syndicated financings, which have included hundreds of revolving credit, term loan, letter of credit, liquidity and other facilities.

Mr. Katz’s practice also focuses on distressed debt and other troubled credits. He represents agents, lender groups, individual lenders, and borrowers in workouts, recapitalization transactions and through the restructuring process in order to maximize value for his clients. He deals extensively with intercreditor issues arising between and among secured and unsecured creditors, senior and subordinated creditors, first- lien and second-lien lenders, and first-out and last-out first-lien lenders, including enforcement issues, rights, and remedies. By analyzing the indentures and other debt and credit instruments of an issuer, he advises debtholders of their relative rights and priorities among creditors, and of their potential remedies and other options. For example, Mr. Katz successfully asserted and negotiated a large “double-dip” recovery in a Chapter 11 case on behalf of a major institutional client.

Mr. Katz regularly represents business development companies and other permanent capital vehicles in connection with their warehouse and other structured financings. In addition, Mr. Katz has extensive experience with mezzanine financings of commercial real estate structurally subordinated to rated mortgage-backed securities. These require sophisticated lockbox mechanisms and cash-flow management techniques. He has also advised on compliance with rating agency requirements for the structuring of borrowers as special purpose bankruptcy-remote vehicles.

A member of Dechert’s International and Insolvency Litigation group, Mr. Katz has experience in a broad range of issues that arise in cross-border transactions, including foreign currency and exchange issues as well as foreign collateral security issues. He has been involved with many transactions in Latin America and the Caribbean, and is familiar as well with Israeli corporate and commercial law.

Mr. Katz has been listed in multiple editions of legal directory The Legal 500 U.S. for his work in bank lending. He has also appeared on CNN and other national media on a range of legal and financial issues.

  • The ad hoc group of secured and unsecured bondholders of Brazil’s largest domestic airline, GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A., in connection with its US$1.6 billion combined liability management and new capital financing transaction.
  • Griffon Corporation (NYSE: GFF), through its subsidiary The AMES Companies, Inc., in connection with Griffon Corporation’s US$845 million acquisition of Hunter Fan Company, a market leader in residential ceiling, commercial, and industrial fans, from MidOcean Partners.
  • An ad hoc group of noteholders of DTEK Finance Plc on the restructuring of approximately US$1.5 billion of indebtedness pursuant to a scheme of arrangement under Part 26 of the Companies Act 2006.
  • Griffon Corporation in connection with its acquisition of ClosetMaid Corporation, a market leader of home storage and organization products, from Emerson Electric Co.
  • Griffon Corporation and its subsidiaries in connection with an amendment to increase the size of its revolving credit facility from US$400 million to US$500 million, and extend the maturity of the revolver facility.
  • Wilmington Trust, N.A., as agent, and Stonehill Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital, as note purchasers, under a US$125 million senior secured debt financing for WCI Communities, Inc.
  • Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, as agent, under a US$100 million Trico Shipping first-lien term loan facility.
  • White Oak Global Advisors, as agent for first-out lenders, in a US$250 million first-lien financing for a prominent West Coast movie studio.
  • Royal Bank of Scotland and Candlewood Partners, as lenders, under a US$115 million senior secured credit facility for APW, Inc. 
  • Anchorage Capital, Rimrock Capital, Monarch Alternative Capital and Gordon Brothers, as lenders, under a US$270 million first-lien term loan facility for a major retail fashion chain.
  • Monarch Alternative Capital and Equity Group Investors, as lenders, in an US$80 million senior financing for Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp.
  • Cheyne Special Situation Fund, as senior lender, in connection with an asset-based loan facility for Porta Systems Corp.
  • When a Pro Rata Share is not Enough: Intra-Creditor Disputes — Dechert Distressed Investing Forum, Virtual Conference (November 12, 2020)
  • Is Your Security Package Fail-Safe? — AIJA Half-Year Conference, New York, NY (November 11, 2009)
Services
    • Columbia Law School, J.D., 1985, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Joseph L. Wiener Scholar
    • Columbia University, B.A., 1985, summa cum laude, selected for and completed Columbia’s Accelerated Interdisciplinary Legal Education Program
    • New York
    • Former vice chairman, Business Law Section of the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division