Michele focuses on corporate finance, global capital markets, corporate trust transactional matters, corporate trust insolvency and restructuring, and general corporate and business law.
With over 30 years of experience, Michele focuses her practice on corporate finance, particularly in the area of domestic and international cross-border capital markets debt issuances. She has participated in every facet of the practice, representing issuers, borrowers, underwriters, trustees, and credit enhancement providers in connection with the issuance of all types of capital markets debt, including publicly registered, privately placed, taxable, tax-exempt, and secured and unsecured debt issuances.
Michele has extensive experience representing major money center banks as corporate trustees, issuing and paying agents, fiscal agents, collateral agents, security agents, intercreditor agents, loan administrative agents, account banks, depository banks, escrow agents, and custodians in a wide variety of complex finance transactions, including CoCos Tier 1 and Tier 2 bonds, notes subject to bail-in and BRRD, perpetual bonds, project finance debt, increasing rate notes, extendible notes, zero coupon notes, liquid yield option notes, participating notes, pay-in-kind notes, trust preferred notes, foreign currency denominated notes, first mortgage bonds, medium term notes, short and medium term bank notes, floating rate notes, auction rate notes, exchangeable notes, notes indexed to common stock of another issuer, and a wide variety of structured finance and derivative products, including tender option bonds and collateralized debt obligations.
She regularly advises issuers, corporate trustees, loan administrative agents, and other creditor and lender groups in connection with exchange offers, tender offers, consent solicitations, redemptions and defeasance, workouts, defaults, out-of-court restructurings, and bankruptcies.
Michele is a “go-to counsel” for the complex issues raised by the Caesars and Marblegate decisions for several money center banks in connection with out-of-court restructuring activities relating to consent solicitations, exit consents, guarantees, mergers, and asset sales and for LIBOR discontinuance issues for trustees, calculation agents, and paying agents.
She has served as counsel to a settlement party in connection with the negotiation, drafting, establishment, funding, investment, and distribution of settlement trust funds in connection with major bankruptcy and litigation qualified settlement funds; represented issuers, lenders, borrowers, underwriters, developers, and property managers as lead finance lawyer in a variety of project finance transactions, including infrastructure projects, public-private partnerships, the privatization of the rehabilitation and construction of military housing and multi-family mixed use housing projects; and advised hedge funds in connection with their compliance obligations under the Investment Advisers Act and drafted compliance materials.
Michele has experience in the transportation industry, working with companies in the railroad and airline sectors in connection with their general financing needs and their equipment financing transactions. She has served as lead counsel in two transactions that were awarded Deal of the Year and four transactions that were nominated for Deal of the Year.
Michele participated as a member of the ABA Corporate Finance Special Committee on Indenture Trustees and was a contributing member of the Committee on Trust Indentures and Indenture Trustees to The American Bar Association Annotated Trust Indenture Act Project.
