Kutak Rock has participated in student loan financings since 1981 as bond counsel, issuer’s counsel, underwriter’s counsel (or purchaser’s counsel), credit enhancer’s counsel, disclosure counsel and special tax counsel. We have provided legal services in these roles in approximately 1,000 issues of education loan revenue bonds in 40 states. The firm represents both public student loan financing entities in tax exempt and taxable bond transactions and privately held education loan financing corporations in taxable asset backed securitizations.
We have been involved in virtually all of the commonly used student loan financing structures, including fixed rate bonds, credit enhanced floating rate bonds, auction rate bonds, LIBOR floating rate notes, commercial paper, senior/subordinate/junior subordinate structures, a combination of tax exempt and taxable bonds, delayed delivery bonds, drawdown bonds, warehouse financings and other asset backed securitizations of the type more common in the corporate finance world.
The knowledge of our student loan finance attorneys far exceeds mastery of the basic financing structures, allowing us to provide more assistance to our clients than many other law firms. Having represented so many types of market participants, our attorneys are familiar with virtually every aspect of student loan transactions and can assist clients in interpreting and seeking clarification of student loan issues, structuring transactions to satisfy tax, perfection, bankruptcy and true-sale requirements, negotiating servicing contracts, swaps and other derivative products, and working out or restructuring troubled portfolios.
Kutak Rock’s tax group has been instrumental in assisting many issuers to steer a course through the complex arbitrage mechanics involved in chains of multiple student loan refunding transactions, including devising a sound theory of student loan transfer pricing that permits issuers to determine any required yield reduction payments or loan forgiveness at dates later and more convenient than the dates of each refunding.
Our firm is a member of the Education Finance Council (“EFC”), a secondary market trade group representing the student loan community. Through EFC and our ongoing representation of student loan issuers, we keep up with the latest developments in the student loan industry.
