King & Spalding LLP works with a wide client roster that encompasses transportation industry companies (such as General Motors, Genuine Parts Company and UPS) as well as major banks and private creditor providers that provide financing for transportation asset acquisitions and dispositions. The large group also advises on the leasing of transportation-related assets. The team has enviable experience in advising on financing structures for rolling stock, locomotives, chassis, containers, automobiles, tractors, and other equipment across North America. Its expertise covers operating, leveraged, capital and synthetic leases, along with syndicated and single-bank credit facilities. The practice additionally assists with the purchase and sale of rolling stock. Routinely representing transportation industry-related financial sponsors and portfolio companies, Charlotte-based Christopher Buchanan is experienced in a range of transportation-related financing structures that include cash flow and asset-based loan facilities, while Atlanta-based restructuring and bankruptcy expert Jeff Dutson is highly rated for workouts that include equipment and leasing structures. In New York, the team further features Peter Montoni, who advises on the financing of transportation assets; and Todd Holleman, a specialist in private credit and special situations investing. Former banking and institutional finance leader Ronald Lovelace left the firm in February 2023.

Vedder Price‘s ‘experience and expertise are unmatched’. The firm’s global transportation finance team fields asset finance and securitization specialists from Chicago, New York, DC, Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as from London and Singapore. Representing lessors, lenders, manufacturers, government agencies, equity investors and operators, the team acts on rail asset-related domestic and international leasings as well as on debt financing, and its transactional experience ranges from railcar purchases and sales to complex securitizations of railcar portfolios. The team additionally assists equity investors with acquiring and establishing new railcar leasing platforms as well as with structuring strategic joint ventures with railcar lessors and manufacturers. Michael Draz is a specialist in rail financing structures involving securitizations, warehouse loan facilities, cross-border operating and leveraged leases, and portfolio acquisitions and divestitures. John Bycraft, Clay Thomas in Los Angeles, and Jillian Greenwald ‘have probably done more railcar financing transactions than any other team in the country’. The practice also includes New York-based transportation finance expert Jeffrey Veber, while Geoffrey Kass is global transportation finance practice chair.  In a boost to the team, railcar financing structure specialist Joel Thielen was promoted to shareholder in March 2023. All attorneys named are based in Chicago unless otherwise mentioned.