King & Spalding offices in the Middle East, Europe and the United States are actively involved in the financing of industrial assets, in particular shipping (including LNG vessels) and aviation finance. Our asset finance lawyers operate across both private and public international finance markets working closely with our clients on a wide range of asset financing matters. We have a market-leading Islamic finance practice that has focused on the issues that arise in financing industrial assets in compliance with Shari’ah principles, and we are regularly called on to develop structures for Shari’ah-compliant financing of industrial assets.
We have helped create a number of unique cross-border structures designed to take advantage of disparate tax and accounting treatments in multiple jurisdictions. In that regard, we are the leading firm in the documentation and implementation of US/UK mismatch structures. In the last fiscal year we represented lessors, lessees and advisers in over $2billion in asset cost in such transactions.
We can provide expert and tailored commercial legal advice on every aspect of international and domestic shipping and aviation finance transactions including:
- newbuilding and second-hand ship financing
- domestic and cross-border finance leasing
- Shari’ah-compliant structured financing
- operating leases and other off-balance sheet financing
- full pay-out lease and hire purchase financing
- public and private offerings of equity and debt and related stock
- international taxation
- workouts
Many of our lawyers are regular speakers at key shipping and aviation conferences around the world (such as the Lloyds Maritime Academy and the Geneva, Hong Kong and New York Air Finance Conferences) and have had articles published in some of the world’s leading publications (such as Air Finance Journal and the LNG Journal).
With more than 25 lawyers in offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh, King & Spalding is among the largest and fastest-growing U.S. law firms in the Middle East.
