Tax-Exempt Finance
Cost effective capital formation for public and private sector clients is increasingly accomplished by directly accessing the capital markets in ways that require a level of sophisticated expertise. Stevens & Lee has the expertise, size and experience to assist our governmental, health care, higher education, 501(c)(3) and private sector clients in meeting their capital needs.
Our tax-exempt finance practice has significant experience in financing, refinancing, debt restructuring and derivative products for health care and higher education facilities, local and regional governmental projects, school district facilities, water and sewer facilities, housing projects, convention centers, manufacturing facilities and other public and private economic development projects. Assisting clients in analyzing and implementing innovative financing plans that create economically efficient solutions to improve cash flow and fund programs in compliance with federal and state tax law requirements is our focus. Over the past decade, we have successfully negotiated, documented and closed more than 1,200 transactions totaling over $30 billion in aggregate principal amount.
Our affiliation with FSL Public Finance, a municipal advisory firm specializing in tax-exempt and taxable debt financing, enables us to offer our clients an integrated approach in solving their debt-related issues.
Stevens & Lee serves as bond counsel, underwriter’s counsel, borrower’s counsel, special tax counsel and in all other capacities related to the practice of tax-exempt finance in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Our experience in the tax, charitable, securities, derivative products, loan origination, trading and servicing areas permits us to effectively address all legal issues that may be represented in a given transaction and to go that next critical step in effectively analyzing ways to improve the structure of a transaction to better meet our clients’ needs.
Our Tax-Exempt Finance Team has extensive experience dealing with Section 103 and Sections 141 through 150 of the Code, as well as Section 103 tax law.
Stevens & Lee also represents issuers and borrowers in connection with post-issuance matters, including the restructuring of bond issues, post-issuance compliance programs, reorganizations/affiliations of charitable health care obligors and providing representation in connection with IRS audits and investigations.
We also have extensive experience working with derivatives and other interest rate management products and have served as swap counsel in numerous transactions, including interest rate swaps, basis swaps and total return swaps and also in connection with the restructuring and termination of such swaps. As bond/tax counsel, we have addressed the credit implications of such agreements on the indentured funds and the integration treatment of such agreements for tax purposes and their effects on yield.
