Baker Botts augments NY aviation finance offering



Baker Botts augments NY aviation finance offering











Aviation finance is the focus for Baker Botts’ latest New York recruit, Jonathan Goldstein.

Aviation finance is the focus for Baker Botts’ latest New York recruit, Jonathan Goldstein.

Jonathan Goldstein has joined Baker Botts’ New York finance section of the corporate division as a partner, bringing a particular practice focus on financing structures and active participants in the transportation and aviation finance space.

Leasing companies, airlines, underwriters, banks, trustees and private equity firms are among the cluster of clients Goldstein advises, on asset-backed securitisations, sale and lease transactions, secured loans and structured notes and enhanced equipment trust certificate offerings.

He also acts on offerings of secured and unsecured notes, the formation of structured finance vehicles, and general leveraged finance matters.

Goldstein, who has joined the firm after two years at Hughes Hubbard & Reed “is a leading aviation finance lawyer who provides an ideal fit in an area of steady demand for us,” said Baker Botts managing partner John Martin in a statement, adding: “His arrival continues our strategic growth trajectory in New York, one of our key markets.”

Chair of the firm’s corporate division Mike Bengtson explained: “A number of our clients rely heavily on the firm to provide aviation finance capabilities, and Jonathan’s deep experience in this area speaks for itself,” also stating that Goldstein’s arrival will also help to grow the firm’s structured finance and transportation capabilities.

Prior to Hughes Hubbard, Goldstein was a partner for three years at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, before which he was a Katten Muchin Rosenman partner for two years. He headed up the transportation finance division at Shearman & Sterling for two years before this, and in his early career had a nine-year stretch at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy (now Milbank), where he specialised in aviation, rail, marine and wider transportation industry issues.

Goldstein’s arrival follows in the tracks of Avner Bengera, who also joined the firm in New York as cross-border mergers and acquisitions co-head, at the start of April.

A Perkins Coie partner with experience handling aerospace and defence industry-related financing transactions joined Mayer Brown in Chicago in March.