Practice Areas
Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Digital Assets
Derivatives & Structured Products
Municipal Derivatives
Municipal Securitization
OTC Derivatives
Securitization & Asset Based Finance
Strategic Risk Transfers & Capital Relief Trades
Structured Products
Admissions
New York
Education
Columbia Law School - LL.M., 1997
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law - LL.B., 1995
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Profile
Ivan Loncar, co-chair of the Financial Services Group, focuses his practice on derivatives, structured finance and municipal finance (including distressed municipal finance).
Ivan represents dealers, banks, and other financial institutions in connection with (i) unfunded derivatives involving a wide range of products (e.g., interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, total return swaps, commodity swaps, etc.) and counterparty types and (ii) funded derivative products (e.g., credit linked notes and other structured notes, repackaging transactions, market access trades, etc.). He also has extensive experience with the structuring of derivatives product companies and the repackaging of swap receivables, capital relief trades (CRTs) and other structured transactions that combine securitization techniques and derivative products.
Ivan also represents creditors in connection with tax-exempt and taxable financings by U.S. state and local governments and non-for-profit corporations, including the work out and restructuring of transactions with distressed municipal entities (both in and out of bankruptcy court proceedings). He has extensive experience with credit facilities, liquidity facilities, financial guarantee insurance policies, interest rate swaps, forward delivery agreements and other reinvestment contracts relating to such financings. He also has deep knowledge of secondary market municipal financial products, including municipal tender option bond programs and other securitizations of municipal debt.
Ivan is regularly ranked as a leading lawyer in derivatives and structured finance in legal directories, including Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Legal 500 US, IFLR 1000 and The Best Lawyers in America. Ivan has also been recognized by Legal 500 US as a leading lawyer in municipal bankruptcy and derivatives and structured products. Notably, Ivan has been described by clients in Chambers USA as “tremendous” and "incredibly thoughtful and knowledgeable," and in Legal 500 US as “simply outstanding” in the municipal derivatives field and as an “expert in fixed income and credit derivatives and structured financial products.” Ivan was part of the team that was named 2020 Regulatory Team of the Year by IFLR Americas.
Ivan is active in the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Structured Finance Association (SFA) and was the co-chair of the SFA’s Derivatives in Securitization Task Force.
Ivan received his LL.B. from University of Belgrade School of Law and his LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law. He is admitted to practice in the State of New York.
Experience
Notable transactions and advisory matters in which Ivan has been involved include:
Derivatives and Structured Finance
- Representing a major dealer in connection with (a) the structuring, negotiation and documentation of a series of complex derivative transactions aggregating over $107 billion in notional amount used to hedge interest rate, prepayment and credit risk associated with the automobile-lending unit financing undertaken as part of the acquisition of an 80% stake in the Chrysler Group by an affiliate of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, and (b) the subsequent restructuring of those transactions as a result of the recent bankruptcy of Chrysler LLC.
- Representing a major bank as an intermediary with respect to a significant portion of an insurance company's portfolio of derivative transactions with CDOs in order to provide such insurance company with liquidity relief by replacing such insurance company in such transactions, whose ratings would have required it to overcollateralize such transactions.
- Advised a major financial institution in the structuring, negotiation and documentation of a complex set of derivative transactions having a notional amount in excess of $1 billion that allowed our client to step into in-the-money interest rate swaps with a distressed toll road financing entity on an almost risk-free basis and repackage the cash-flows thereunder, which were then passed through to a hedge fund investor whom otherwise would not have been able to access this risk/return. The financial guaranty insurance policy wrapping the in-the-money interest rate swaps were also synthetically commuted, providing the financial guaranty insurer with capital relief.
- Representation of dealer in connection with $1 billion merger-contingent interest rate swap in connection with $28 billion leveraged buy-out.
Municipal Finance
- Advising a monoline insurer in connection with the potential restructuring of several billion dollars of debt issued by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and its public agencies.
- Advising various creditors and interested parties in Jefferson County’s chapter 9 case, including advising a sewer warrantholder in the negotiation of the county’s plan of adjustment.
- Advising Detroit Public Schools in connection with the initial preparation for a chapter 9 filing and pre-petition financing.
- Advising ISDA in connection with the development of template documentation for credit default swaps on U.S. states, municipalities and other local governments, including the 2012 U.S. Municipal Reference Entity Supplement to the 2003 ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions and the related ISDA protocol.
- Representing the sponsor and dealer group that developed MCDX, the index for Credit Default Swaps on U.S. state and local governments, including the trading documentation for tranche MCDX.
- Representing Goldman Sachs in connection with the structuring and negotiation of (a) a basis swap agreement related to the issuance of approximately $1 billion of tax-exempt and taxable bonds to finance the construction of the new Yankee Stadium, and (b) a $198 million portion of such bonds that bear interest at a floating rate that is determined based on the Consumer Price Index and a floating-to-fixed interest rate swap agreement relating to such bonds.
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