Experience
Bond Counsel for $1.16 Billion Health Care Financing
We served as bond counsel for Bon Secours Mercy Health, Inc., one of the nation’s 20 largest health care systems, with respect to the issuance of several series of bonds totaling $1.16 billion in aggregate principal amount. As bond counsel, we assisted with each step of the financing process, which involved the public offering of municipal tax-exempt and corporate taxable bonds involving issuers in three states. The bonds were issued in April of 2020 and enabled the financing or refinancing of health care facilities in Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia while also contributing to the re-opening of the capital markets for health care borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These combined bond deals were selected by The Bond Buyer as its 2020 Deal of the Year in the Health Care Financing Category.
$14.2 million bond counsel for independent senior living and care organization
When the Laurel Lake Retirement Community was presented with the opportunity to become an independent senior living and care organization, it turned to us for counsel on the financing. We enlisted the help of the County of Summit, Ohio, to serve as issuer for a portion of the debt and worked closely with Laurel Lake and BB&T Capital Markets.
Through these partnerships, we helped to bring to life a master indenture financing structure involving three separate series of bonds for the tax-exempt portion of the financing and several separate taxable note issues. These included (i) a senior series of tax-exempt bonds, which was paired with an accompanying taxable portion of the financing, as an attractive investment to banks, (ii) two subordinate series of tax-exempt bonds, one fixed rate and the other adjustable rate, which were marketed to retail investors, and (iii) several series of taxable notes placed with banks.
We helped guide Laurel Lake and the County through the bond issuance process and related tax issues, holding the public hearings mandated by the Internal Revenue Service regulations, drafting the necessary bond and tax documentation and ultimately playing an important role in helping our client secure the lowest possible financing costs in reaching its goals.