Les is experienced in financings involving asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), and collateralized mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), representing issuers, investment banks, funds, liquidity banks, and credit enhancers. He works with clients in securitizing new asset classes and helped form a trust certificate program securitized by low income housing bonds. Les helped establish the first short term option certificate program secured by outstanding debt, the creation of a $13.5 billion federal securitization program to assist in the current housing crisis with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (see “Bankruptcy, Financial Restructuring, and Work-Outs” section), and securitizations relating to television rights and timber revenues.

In the origination of several mortgage loans for a large financial institution, Les redrafted all of the loan documents to meet securitization guidelines and used various other closed transactions to provide model documents to best protect the lender in the issuance of the last large CMBS transactions consummated prior to the financial crisis. He has also helped to structure and prepare initial documentation for the securitization of mortgage loans and Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits (REMICs), including various forward delivery structures utilizing specially modeled swaps, and large programs involving the securitization of unrated bonds secured by mortgage loans, representing MBIA Insurance Corporation.

Les serves as a bridge between the real estate, finance, and bankruptcy groups in workouts of real estate, finance, and securitization transactions. Les worked on various restructurings which included, inter alia, the closing of the “open” pooled nature of various programs, issuing auction rate securities and providing for a blanket securitization letter of credit for those projects in construction. He has worked on several workouts of multifamily housing loan, tax credit, and bond transactions involving extensive negotiation with government issuers, Housing and Urban Development, bond funds, tax credit syndicators, borrowers, underwriters, bond counsel, credit enhancers, trustees, and lending institutions.

Currently, he is representing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the purchase by the US Department of Treasury of $13.5 billion of GSE securities backed by a portfolio of bonds, and bond liquidity and credit enhanced multistate pooled single family and multifamily transactions of $8 billion, the major US initiative to deal with the current housing crisis. These transactions involved approximately 115 state and local governmental issuers.

He just consummated the settlement of a structured finance investment with a large foreign banking institution. The case, which involved claims of improper administration of the investment redemption request on the securities as well as failure to substitute the failing underlying securities, had been before the US District Court of the Southern District of New York and JAMS. Another case involving arbitration of a real estate loan with a dispute on appraised value is before two federal district courts and the American Arbitration Association.

He also took the lead in a pre-pack bankruptcy involving two securitizations and worked on all real estate and finance related matters in the Section 363 bankruptcy sale of 12 single family housing developments containing approximately 150 homes from the second largest single family housing developer in New Jersey.

In order to deal with the tremendous increase in traffic over its three international bridge crossings due to the enactment of the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission developed a 30-year expansion program. Les assisted in the securing of both federal and state tax-exempt status for the Commission’s bonds through the enactment of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (“ISTEA”). This deal was selected by the Institutional Investor as one of the four “deals of the year.” He also represented the Multi-Purpose Stadium Authority of Lackawanna County in its financing for the design, construction, and equipping of a multipurpose stadium facility located in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. The stadium, with a seating capacity of approximately 10,380, with expansion to approximately 12,500 for field seating, is now the home to the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees, a Triple A affiliate of The New York Yankees.

He worked as special privatization counsel to the New York City Economic Development Corporation with respect to the disposition of Coney Island, Elmhurst, and Queens Hospitals. This transaction was one of the largest and most complicated privatizations ever undertaken in the United States.

Les recently consummated the settlement of an insurance-linked securities investment with a large foreign banking institution where the underlying life settlement fund had been unwound. The case involved, among other things, the failure to substitute the failing underlying fund with another fund due to failure to meet pool diversification and asset thresholds. This case was before the US District Court of the Southern District of New York and a former judge mediator.

He represented Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the provision of liquidity and credit enhancement in a $8 billion program requiring Les to draft many of the template documents for the program, and assisted in overseeing the implementation of this program. Also, he worked with MBIA Insurance Corporation on its securitizations of tax-exempt bonds and timber focusing on issues relating to these new asset classes and the impact on the insurance agreements and the related surety bonds.