François Gilbert

François Gilbert is counsel in the Banking Group. François has 20 years’ experience as a banking and finance lawyer, with expertise covering a broad range of sectors including structured finance, project finance, syndicated lending, securitization, derivatives and debt capital markets.

François has broad experience of syndicated loans, inter-creditor and cross-border security issues, asset-based lending and acquisition finance. He has also been involved in a number of project financings in the mining (both in Canada and internationally), energy (including natural gas and wind power) and infrastructure PPP sectors.

He has significant expertise relating to:

• OTC and exchange-traded interest rate, foreign exchange, equity, commodity, credit and fund-linked derivatives;
• structured products with embedded derivatives such as share, index and credit-linked notes;
• clearing and settlement systems;
• the regulation of derivatives, exchanges and clearing houses;
• repos;
• repackaging transactions;
• cash and synthetic structured credit transactions based on novel classes of debt (e.g., project finance and emerging market debt); and
• advising financial institutions and pension/investment funds in the context of structured transactions driven by tax or regulatory considerations.

He has also developed significant expertise relating to several asset classes in both the ABCP and term markets, including credit cards, auto and heavy equipment loans and leases, trade receivables and mortgages. He has advised originators, underwriters, institutional investors, liquidity lenders, credit enhancers/insurers, swap counterparties and warehouse lenders, and has acted as lead counsel to several of Canada’s largest banks on securitizations of their asset portfolios.

In regards to debt offerings, François has significant experience relating to public and private structured debt offerings, including commercial paper, MTN programs, notes listed on European stock exchanges, and offerings involving Rule 144A private placements into the U.S.