Geoffrey R. Kass > Vedder Price > Chicago, United States > Lawyer Profile

Vedder Price has a wealth of experience advising leasing companies and airlines on operating lease transactions across Southeast Asia Pacific as well as Japan, South Korea, and India, counting a large number of well-known lessors as its key clients. Praised for its ‘pragmatic and market-driven approach‘ and leveraging its strong ties with its US offices, the team is well-equipped to advise on English and New York law and on cross-border financing transactions as well as operating lease restructurings for airliners. The team is jointly led by Singapore-based Ji Woon Kim who is ‘armed with global and in-depth knowledge and experience in the aviation industry‘, notably in transactions, financings, JOLCOs, and sales and leasebacks, and Geoffrey Kass who is based in its Chicago office.

Housing ‘one of the premier aviation finance legal practices’, Vedder Price‘s client base ranges from major airlines, export credit agencies, operating lessors and asset managers to investment funds, finance companies, and manufacturers and manufacturer finance companies. The team handles the full gamut of aircraft finance deals, with its expertise covering large-value M&A deals, aircraft-related asset-backed securities, and portfolio debt financings. It also assists with structured multi-aircraft financings in the capital markets, sale and leaseback deals, individual aircraft sales, and maintenance, repair and overhaul agreements. In Chicago, Geoffrey Kass is a specialist in aviation sector-related structured financings; Adam Beringer focuses on commercial aircraft finance; Mark Ditto represents operating lessors, commercial banks, finance companies, private equity firms and hedge funds in commercial aircraft and high-value equipment transactions; and Michael Draz is another key aviation finance practitioner. Over in New York, Jeffrey Veber is well known for his work with EXIM Bank on cross-border aircraft leasings; Cameron Gee is ‘one of the best aviation partners around‘; and Justine Chilvers advises on an array of cross-border and domestic aircraft finance transactions. Another key adviser is aircraft finance transaction expert Raviv Surpin in Los Angeles.

With ‘a wealth of knowledge in the area of ship finance’, Vedder Price‘s global transportation finance practice has enviable credentials in finance transactions. Such deals involve intermodal containers, chassis, barges, terminal facilities, bridge training simulators, ferries, and offshore construction and oil exploration vessels, as well as vessels involved in the transportation of cargo and passengers. The group’s expertise covers a range of maritime and offshore finance deals, including securitizations, syndicated and bilateral loans, export-credit facilities, debt capital markets, sale-leaseback transactions, leases, and bareboat charters. Experienced in cross-border marine finance structures, John Bradley represents lenders, investors, borrowers, ship owners, container lessors and marine terminal operators in the acquisition, disposition, leasing, financing and documentation of vessels, containers and terminal facilities; and John Imhof Jr and John Geager ‘have a keen understanding of the maritime industry and maritime finance’. Also key to the department, Anthony Renzi in  Washington DC routinely acts for shipping, energy and offshore services sector clients, while Chicago’s Geoffrey Kass is the firm’s global transportation finance chair. All attorneys named are based in the New York office unless otherwise stated.

Vedder Price‘s ‘experience and expertise are unmatched’. The firm’s global transportation finance team fields asset finance and securitization specialists from Chicago, New York, DC, Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as from London and Singapore. Representing lessors, lenders, manufacturers, government agencies, equity investors and operators, the team acts on rail asset-related domestic and international leasings as well as on debt financing, and its transactional experience ranges from railcar purchases and sales to complex securitizations of railcar portfolios. The team additionally assists equity investors with acquiring and establishing new railcar leasing platforms as well as with structuring strategic joint ventures with railcar lessors and manufacturers. Michael Draz is a specialist in rail financing structures involving securitizations, warehouse loan facilities, cross-border operating and leveraged leases, and portfolio acquisitions and divestitures. John Bycraft, Clay Thomas in Los Angeles, and Jillian Greenwald ‘have probably done more railcar financing transactions than any other team in the country’. The practice also includes New York-based transportation finance expert Jeffrey Veber, while Geoffrey Kass is global transportation finance practice chair.  In a boost to the team, railcar financing structure specialist Joel Thielen was promoted to shareholder in March 2023. All attorneys named are based in Chicago unless otherwise mentioned.