With a legal career spanning nearly three decades, Chris has developed a sophisticated superregional practice focusing in the areas of real estate finance and commercial lending. He has extensive experience in handling a variety of financial and other transactional matters on behalf of lenders, agent banks, borrowers, letter-of-credit issuers and other key players.
His real estate finance practice covers a wide array of property types including retail, office, multifamily, industrial and hotel, and includes both fee simple and ground lease financing. These transactions run the gamut from single-borrower, single-property loans to multi-state transactions involving multiple properties and complex borrower structures. Chris’s commercial lending practice includes revolving and term facilities, both secured and unsecured, and asset based lending. He has experience with collateral of all types. He is deeply familiar with Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) and the methods of perfection thereunder. Chris also has substantial experience with lender and rating agency requirements as to bankruptcy-remote, single-purpose entities and associated legal issues.
In addition, Chris assists financial institutions in dealing with troubled assets and/or credits, including loan restructurings, workouts, note sales and dispositions of real estate-owned properties. In this context, he has negotiated workout and forbearance agreements and assisted clients in achieving successful recovery through sales of assets and/or refinancing of credits. Chris’s legal experience also includes natural resources, water rights and Native American issues.
Representative Experience
Any result the lawyer or law firm may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.
- Represented the lender with respect to fixed and floating rate loans, in an amount up to $550 million, to the owner of a luxury retail center in the Miami area for the refinancing of existing debt and future draws for project expansion and tenant improvements.
- Represented the lender in a $115.5 million mortgage facility secured by an office building in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area.
- Represented the lender in a $100 million mortgage portfolio loan secured by nine office and industrial properties located in seven states.
- Represented a manufacturing company in the refinancing of existing indebtedness with new senior term loan and asset-based facilities in the total amount of $147.5 million secured by all real and personal property assets, with priority as to shared collateral governed through an intercreditor arrangement.
- Represented the lender in connection with two loans to affiliated borrowers to finance the acquisition of multiple properties in North Carolina’s Research Triangle and redevelopment of the properties into life science research, office and laboratory spaces.
- Represented a national banking association in connection with ongoing credit facilities to a textile company and its US and foreign subsidiaries, including a multicurrency facility to a European affiliate and a pledge of interests in an offshore subsidiary.
Professional & Civic Engagement
- North Carolina Bar Association, Real Property Section
- 21st Judicial District Bar Association
- Member, Board of Directors, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) Foundation, 2015–2022; Board Chair, 2016–2018
- Member, Board of Directors, Winston-Salem Lacrosse, Inc., 2010–2013; Board Vice Chair, 2011–2013
- Member, Board of Directors, Horizons Residential Care Center, 2004–2006
- Leadership Winston-Salem: Inducted into Community Trusteeship, June 2011
Honors & Awards
- Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America (BL Rankings), Banking and Finance Law, 2015–Present
- AV® Preeminent rated, Martindale-Hubbell
