Richard is Chair of Reed Smith’s Transportation Industry Group. He is an asset finance partner, focusing in aviation and shipping.
He advises clients in relation to a broad range of aviation and shipping work, with a primary focus on the financing, leasing, trading, and repackaging of transportation assets, acting for clients across the whole spectrum and life cycle of shipping and aviation deals.
Richard has advised lenders, equity investors, leasing companies, and operators on a wide range of aircraft, maritime, and other asset-based and receivables-backed finance and leasing transactions (including their restructuring). He has extensive experience in a wide range of structured and large-scale cross-border transactions, including in export credit agency-related matters, commercial debt finance, Islamic finance, Japanese operating leases, tax lease structures, pre-delivery payment finance, operating leases, individual asset and portfolio sales and purchases, securitizations, capital markets products, joint ventures, business jet finance, engine finance, OEM purchase agreements, and restructurings. His role frequently entails partnering with clients who are looking at some of the most complex and innovative transactions in the transportation space. As a result of this, he has been engaged by participants in the nascent advanced air mobility (AAM) sector, to help with drone and eVTOL acquisitions and financings.
Richard is particularly active, and has won multiple awards, in the secondary debt trading and special situations sectors, having acted for buyers, sellers, and financiers of large secured and unsecured loan and lease receivable portfolios. Listed as a “rising star” by a number of publications, including Law360, he has also twice been listed by Airline Economics in its “40 under 40” category, highlighting the most outstanding individuals in the commercial aviation industry under 40 years of age. Richard has been described by clients in Chambers as “a source of great counsel, not just on purely legal matters but also on commercial aspects, where his market knowledge and commercial pragmatism are extremely valuable.” Ranked by leading directories and named on multiple occasions as one of the leading individuals in the world of commercial aviation, Richard is often published and quoted by leading industry publications. He speaks regularly at industry events for both the shipping and aviation markets worldwide, and he also serves as editor-in-chief of Reed Smith’s popular “Legal Flight Deck” aviation blog.
