Katten Grows Its Commercial Finance Practice on East and West Coasts

(NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES) Katten announced today that two new partners have joined its Commercial Finance practice — Kirby Chin in New York and Brian Stern in Los Angeles — expanding a national team that works with many of the most active investors in the market, handles a wide range of US and cross-border financings and has overseen virtually every combination of deal variation, in all kinds of market environments.

“We aim to be an invaluable ally for each client. We do this by offering solutions that help all parties involved in the transaction,” said Michael Jacobson, head of Katten’s Commercial Finance practice, which often oversees more than 500 transactions in a single year.

“Kirby and Brian are skilled at managing the demands of steady high volume, competitive processes and fast-track circumstances,” Jacobson said. “They know the importance of providing 360-degree service that includes real-time solutions. We’re glad to have them on our team.”

Chin has nearly 25 years of experience in a wide variety of financing transactions and has worked extensively on deals that involve challenging and complex financing facilities.

Representing finance companies, investment funds, business development companies, insurance companies and other asset managers, Chin regularly advises clients on structuring and executing multi-layered financing transactions across a dynamic mix of industries, many of which involve complex intercreditor or inter-lender arrangements. He advises investment funds with control positions for special situation companies in restructurings, refinancing and workouts and has advised private equity sponsors in acquisition financings and other leverage facilities for buyouts, add-ons, carve-outs and other control position transactions.

Stern represents borrowers, issuers, agents and lenders in structuring and documenting secured and unsecured financing transactions, including bankruptcy financing transactions. His recent experience includes several transactions representing lenders and agents in acquisition financing and borrowers in subscription line financings, as well as restructuring transactions representing borrowers and lenders in the retail and oil and gas industries.

Before joining Katten, Chin was a partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. Stern formerly was with Milbank LLP.