John Ventola serves as the chair of Choate, Hall & Stewart’s finance and restructuring department. Representing both lenders and borrowers, Ventola works with banks, private credit lenders, and distressed investors advising on financial transactions, including cash flow, asset based, DIP, mezzanine, second lien, and revolving credit loans as well as restructurings.
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Accolades

Boston Elite

Profile

Position

John Ventola, co-chair of Choate’s Finance and Restructuring Group, has more than 25 years of experience representing banks, finance companies, hedge funds, and distressed investors and helping guide them through a wide range of complex lending and corporate restructuring issues, including Chapter 11 cases and out-of-court workouts. John is a Fellow of the prestigious American College of Bankruptcy and is a member of Choate’s Executive Committee.

John’s lending experience includes representing financial institutions in complex, multi-tranche financial transactions, including asset based, cash flow, Term B, second-lien, DIP and mezzanine loans and preferred stock, and other junior capital investments. John also has deep restructuring experience, having practiced extensively in bankruptcy courts across the country in connection with a range of issues, including cash collateral disputes, equitable subordination and recharacterization, Section 363 sales, and contested plans of reorganization. He has particularly extensive experience in retail finance and other asset-based lending transactions and the heavily-negotiated intercreditor arrangements that are often the key element in successfully completing those financing arrangements.

John also frequently works with alternative investors, including private equity sponsors and hedge funds, seeking to identify and acquire distressed companies or assets.

John’s clients include Callodine Commercial Finance, SLR Credit Solutions, PNC Retail Finance, B. Riley Financial, Second Avenue Capital Partners, Wells Fargo, Bank of America Business Capital, and Great American Capital Partners.

Education

Boston College Law School
JD, 1994, magna cum laude, Order of the Coif

Boston College
BS, 1990, magna cum laude

Content supplied by Choate, Hall & Stewart

Key clients

  • Alix Partners B.Riley Financial Bank of America Barings Berkshire Bank Callodine Credit Management Citibank Citizens Bank Eastern Bank First Eagle Investment Management Gordon Brothers Hilco Global JPMorgan Chase

Work highlights

Represented a financial services client as borrower in a secured financing transaction, and in an amendment to an existing syndicated facility agented by a bank.