Ron Borod

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Ron Borod has worked extensively in securitization and structured finance for over two decades and has established a reputation as a thought leader in the creation of innovative structures and financial products. Ron has focused his practice on assisting issuers and underwriters in designing and implementing securitization programs involving non-traditional asset classes.
 

For example, in the 1990s he developed the first national credit tenant lease finance program and the first CTL-only conduit, and designed and executed securitized credit lease programs to provide construction and permanent financing for two national retail companies.
 

Ron was the architect of and served as Issuer's Counsel and Program Advisor for a national program to securitize legal fees awarded as a result of the 1998 settlement of the states' litigation against the tobacco industry. The first of the transactions under this program, Litigation Settlement Monetized Fee Trust I™ US$308.1 Million Pass Through Certificates, Series 2001-1, was named US Asset-Backed Deal of the Year by the International Securitisation Report. To date, Ron has served as lead counsel on more than US$1 billion of securities backed by over $3 billion of tobacco fee revenues.
 

Ron also has significant experience in the renewable energy sector in creating capital market structures for wind, solar and energy efficiency projects, as well as carbon emissions allowances and offsets. He also has been active in the securitization of intellectual property and in whole business securitization.

Ron founded Ram Island Strategies in August 2017 to continue to provide legal, financial structuring, and strategic advisory services to clients seeking improved access to the domestic and foreign capital markets and desiring to optimize structured finance and other capital raising executions. From the RIS platform, Ron continues to offer the value-add services that he provided at DLA Piper LLP and at Brown Rudnick LLP, where he built a reputation over many years of practicing law as a thought leader and innovator in securitization and other forms of structured finance with a focus on first-time issuers and non-traditional asset classes. RIS’s service offerings include strategic advisory, due diligence, deal management, legal structuring and assistance in obtaining favorable ratings on structured finance offerings for start-ups, operating companies and securitization sponsors. 

Specifically, at Ram Island Strategies Ron continues to offer the following services:

• designing the legal architecture for structured finance transactions, 
• interfacing with the rating agencies to obtain investment grade ratings on esoteric asset-backed securities,
• identifying strategic capital and service providers for start-ups, operating companies and sponsors of securitization transactions,
• assisting clients in identifying and resolving legal and structural issues encountered in esoteric ABS transactions and other financings,
• providing strategic advice to clients for building long-term structured finance programs and initiatives, and
• managing finance transactions to final pricing and closing

The RIS platform enables Ron to deliver these services in a manner which differs from the traditional law firm model in the following respects: (i) give clients complete flexibility to contract with Ram Island Strategies for specific service modules and to combine those services, in a manner designed to meet the specific needs of the client, with the services of a traditional law firm or other service providers; (ii) make his services available to clients under creative billing arrangements that are not tied to hourly rates but are instead project-based, tied to results achieved and, in appropriate circumstances, deferred in whole or in part to the occurrence of a liquidity event; and (iii) accept engagements for transactions with longer execution periods than are normally possible for traditional law firms. 

Ron also continues to pursue his prior “impact securitization” model of deploying securitization technology to support transactions and programs that not only “do no harm” but that also promote sustainability, renewable energy and energy efficiency, advances in life science, support for the arts, and other initiatives that promote the public good.

Some representative transactions in which Ron has been involved in recent years include the following:

• Currently serving as co-structuring agent and advisor, with another team of life science finance experts, for a public biotech company to provide financial modeling, legal structuring and documentation and related services to structure and close what, if successful, will be the first issuance of a new product for the financial markets, to be known as BioBonds™, to securitize portfolios of biomedical assets pre-commercialization and thereby provide access to lower-cost capital on a non-dilutive basis. 

• Currently engaged as advisor to the company holding the water rights to one of the largest water resource developments in the U.S., to assist it in structuring and closing a rated securitization of its cash flow rights from the development, including negotiating inter-creditor arrangements with the project developer and other stakeholders to facilitate an efficient financing transaction.

• Working on another team to develop an innovative structured finance mechanism intended to facilitate a global settlement of the multi-jurisdictional opioid litigation by de-correlating key risks which inhibit global settlement and effectively isolating the risk of credit default by monetizing settlement payments of the payer class (i.e., the defendants) while leaving the payee class (i.e., the plaintiffs) in control of monetization proceeds, timing, amount and recipient designation.

• Currently leading a finance team selected by the National Mall Coalition, a private group working with various federal stakeholders in the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to address chronic flooding problems on the National Mall and in surrounding areas and make the National Mall more environmentally sustainable, visitor friendly, and resilient, through a $350+ million project known as the National Mall Underground, an underground two-story, multi-purpose flood reservoir/parking facility. The finance team has developed a preliminary proposal for financing the National Mall Underground through the issuance of rated structured notes, using existing federal contracting programs

• Conceived and structured the program which has enabled outside legal counsel for      various states in the tobacco litigation, which culminated in the landmark settlement in 1998, to monetize their legal fees. These fees (originally aggregating over US$14 billion) are payable by the settling tobacco companies over 28 years. The first of a series of transactions under this program, Litigation Settlement Monetized Fee Trust I™ Pass Through Certificates, Series 2001-1, closed in February of 2001, involving the issuance of US$308.1 million of pass-through certificates. It was named the US Asset-Backed Securities Deal of the Year by the International Securitisation Report. Subsequently, Ron has served as issuer’s or transaction counsel in additional securitizations of tobacco fees      aggregating over $3 billion, working with underwriters and placement agents including Deutsche Bank Securities, Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers, UBS and Guggenheim Securities

• Served as co-chair of the Solar Energy Finance Advisory Council of the Solar Energy Industries Association, and is in such capacity assisted with the structuring and execution of a C&I solar project roll-up securitization.

• Served as co-chair of the legal subgroup working on various mock rating projects under the auspices of Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC), a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)-sponsored initiative to facilitate access of solar power projects to the securitization market. In such capacity, he is the co-lead draftsman of term sheets and the co-lead developer of the legal architecture for multiple versions of solar securitization transactions, including residential and commercial and industrial, and also a structure to harmonize securitization with tax equity structures.

• In 2014, represented an investment firm in the creation of a securitization program to fund the aggregation of portfolios of commercial solar projects and in such capacity designed the legal architecture for issuing asset-backed securities from a portfolio of multi-tiered investment LLCs and project LLCs with tax equity investors under a partnership flip      structure

• In 2018, served as Structuring Agent for a $160,000,000 Credit Lease Financing of a police headquarters facility in Southern Australia

• In 2017, served as Structuring Agent for securitization of tobacco legal fees      resulting from tobacco settlement agreement

• Author, “Esoteric ABS: Pushing the Envelope,” The Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation, April 26, 2017
• Co-author, "The Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC) Mock Securitization Project," NREL, December 21, 2015
• Co-author, "The Second Coming of US Whole Business Securitisation," World Trademark Review, June/July 2015
• Co-author, "Tax Equity and Accounting Considerations in the Solar ABS Structure," The Journal of Structured Finance, Fall 2014
• Co-author, "How Could Securitization Debt Fit with Tax Equity in the Solar Financial Landscape? Pt. I," National Renewable Energy Laboratory, October 4, 2013
• Co-author, "How Could Securitization Debt Fit with Tax Equity in the Solar Financial Landscape? Pt. II," National Renewable Energy Laboratory, October 9, 2013
• Co-author, "Securitization Reform Halftime Report," Banking & Financial Services Policy Report, Volume 32, Number 4, April 2013
• Author, "Belling the Cat: Taming the Securitization Beast Without Killing It," Boston University Review of Banking & Financial Law, Spring 2012; received a 2013 Burton Award for legal writing achievement
• Author, "Did Dodd-Frank Hit or Miss the Securitization Bull’s Eye?" Practical International Corporate Finance Strategies (Thomson Reuters), February 15, 2012
• Author, "Re-Emerging and Esoteric Asset Classes: Questions and Answers," The Journal of Structured Finance, Winter 2012 

• Panelist, “Solar Securitization,” Solar & Storage Finance USA (October 30, 2018)
• Panelist, “An Alternative Financing Model for Funding Biomedical Research,” Jax      Healthcare Forum (Presented by The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine) (October 2018)
• Moderator, “Addressing Risk in Esoteric ABS: From Life Science to Mortality to Climate Change,” ABS East Conference (September 2018)
• Panelist, “Solar ABS: Are Deal Structures Maturing?” 6th Green Investing Conference      (April 2018)
• Panelist, “Securitizations: Tapping Low-Cost Debt Through the Capital Markets,” Solar Power Northeast (February 2018)
• Presented “Capitalizing Solar: A U.S. Work in Process,” Innovation Lab on Renewable      Energy (Jerusalem, Israel, January 2018)
• Moderator, “Sunshine Backed Bonds: A Solar ABS 101,” ABS East 2017 (September 2017)
• Panelist, “Solar Roll-Up—The Maturing Market,” 5th Annual Green Investing Conference      (April 2017)
• Panelist, “Esoteric ABS,” SFIG Vegas (February 2017)  
• Panelist, “Esoteric ABS Roundtable,” Global Capital Securitization Roundtable (February 2017) 
• Presented “Bonding into Climate Change Solutions,” Globes Israel Business Conference      (Tel Aviv, Israel, December 2016) 
• Panelist, “Structural Analysis of Research Backed Obligations,” CanceRx 2016:New      Approaches to Commercializing Biomedical Research (MIT October 2016) 
• Panelist, “Initiatives to Reduce Friction in Solar Finance” and “Sunshine Backed Bonds,” ABS East 2016 (September 2016)
• Moderator, “Bending the Sun Curve: Future Pathways For Financing Distributed Solar,”      NY Energy Week (June 2016)
• Panelist, “Esoteric ABS 101,” ABS Vegas 2016 (February 2016)
• Panelist, "Esoterics 101," ABS East Conference (September 2015)
• Panelist, ''Esoterics 101: Overview of New and Emerging Asset Classes,'' and “Solar Lease Securitization Overview: Challenges and Solutions,” ABS East Conference (September 2014)
• Panelist, "Esoterics 101," ABS East Conference (September 2015)
• Panelist, ''Esoterics 101: Overview of New and Emerging Asset Classes,'' ABS East      Conference (September 2014)
• Panelist, ''Solar Lease Securitization Overview: Challenges and Solutions,'' ABS East Conference (September 2014)
• Moderator, ''Tax Equity Issues and Accounting Considerations in the Solar ABS Structure,'' IMN 2nd Annual Sunshine Backed Bonds Conference (May 2014)
• Panelist, ''Residential Solar ABS: Case Study'' IMN-SFIG ABS Vegas (January 2014)
• Moderator, ''Esoteric of Esoterics,'' IMN-SFIG ABS Vegas (January 2014)
• Panelist, "Securitization", Financial Services Basics, Boston University School of Law (August, 2013)
• Moderator, "Structural, Accounting, Legal Considerations/Concerns for Solar, Wind and Other Renewable ABS Deals," IMN's First Annual Sunshine Backed Bonds Conference (May 2013)
• Panelist, "Public Policy Luncheon" on legal and regulatory issues regarding fixed income and asset-backed securities, 22nd AFSA Finance Industry Conference For Fixed Income Investors (May 2012)
• Panelist, "Shadow Banking: Past, Present, Future," a symposium presented by the Review of Banking & Financial Law, Boston (February 2012)
• Adjunct Professor, Boston University Law School Graduate Program in Banking and      Financial Law, where he has taught a course on ''Securitization and Structured Finance'' for over 15 years