Jackie is an experienced corporate lawyer that focuses her practice on representing both lenders and borrowers in debt finance transactions, with clients including private equity companies, non-traditional lenders, governmental agencies, and business clients of the firm.
Jackie began her corporate practice in 1988 at Ropes & Gray in Boston, advising public and private companies in a variety of sectors on everything from public company reporting to corporate finance to mergers and acquisitions, before narrowing her practice in the late-1990s to debt financing.
Jackie has extensive experience representing lenders in international financings. She regularly represents a US governmental agency and an asset management company that specialize in international project finance and microlending, and has negotiated, documented and closed impact investment financings around the globe, with particular emphasis on the developing world. Other impact lending clients have included three European development finance institutions and two international finance institutions. Historically she has also represented several money center banks as agent banks in their syndicated finance transactions as well as in smaller club or single-bank loans.
Her borrower-side practice services the firm’s clients across sectors in advising on and negotiating their various debt facilities, including syndicated credit facilities, smaller loans, mezzanine financings and publicly held notes. While some of these financings are on behalf of public companies, others are for middle-market and emerging companies. One area of particular focus is representing private equity companies and other institutional investors in financing the acquisition or ongoing funding of their portfolio companies.
Consistently ranked as one of the top banking & finance lawyers in North Carolina by Chambers USA, clients note that she “has tremendous experience and knowledge across all financing instruments."
Click here for an interactive map of the countries around the world targeted in Jackie’s impact financing transactions.
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.
- Diverse international project finance, business lending and guaranty transactions in developing countries worldwide for a United States government agency including affordable quality school projects in Kenya and Ghana, deluxe hotels in Liberia and Iraq, affordable housing projects in Iraq, India, Central and South America, a hydropower plant in Sri Lanka, mortgage financing in Africa, East Asia and Mexico, a US Embassy in Central America, a rice mill in Indonesia, a high-tech green office tower in Pakistan, the workout recovery of a Central American agricultural loan, a Pakistani cinema chain, a leadership academy in South Africa, medical facilities in sub-Saharan Africa, a Vietnamese sustainable fish farm. Recent areas of focus for developmental finance have included multiple projects in each of the following areas: renewable energy, electric vehicles, sustainable agriculture, investment funds, healthcare, banking infrastructure and microfinance.
- Over 30 years of representation of public and private company borrowers in acquisition financings and general financings (senior and mezzanine), in diverse industries including government contracting, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, REITS, marketing, food services, vacation services and high tech.
- Representation of private equity companies in senior and mezzanine financing of portfolio company acquisitions and the portfolio companies in ongoing operations under those credit facilities post-acquisition, including dividend recapitalization amendments.
- Drafting model loan documentation and serving as exclusive counsel to a United States government agency in an ongoing program to provide affordable financing to US small business exporters.
- Representing both a US government client and a private investment client in microfinance projects in numerous countries in the developing world.
Honors & Awards
- Chambers USA Ranked Lawyer, Banking and Finance, North Carolina, 2011 – Present
- Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America (BL Rankings) in the fields of Banking and Finance Law, Corporate Law, Project Finance Law, 2012 – Present
- Honored in Best Lawyers’ Women in the Law Report
- Winner, 2010 Business Leader Media Women Extraordinaire Award
- Runner-up for The American Lawyer’s 2012 Dealmakers of the Year
- Recognized by a U.S. Senator for her contribution in representing the US government in financing transactions and furthering US developmental interests abroad
- Selected by Womble Carlyle and Lex Mundi in 2014 as a leading corporate lawyer to attend mini-MBA program sponsored by Lex Mundi at the University of Cambridge Judge School of Business
Languages
- French, proficient
- German, conversational
- Dutch, basic
