Otterbourg named Valerie S. Mason and Nneoma A. Maduike co-chairs of the firm’s lender finance practice group. Maduike and Mason are also members of Otterbourg’s finance practice, which encompasses acquisition finance, asset-based lending, structured finance, bankruptcy financing, and international and syndicated lending, among other specialized areas.

Maduike represents banks, hedge funds, private equity funds, commercial finance companies and other institutional lenders on structuring and documentation of lease and loan transactions, including asset-based, cash flow and structured finance transactions, as well as loan workouts and restructurings and portfolio acquisitions and dispositions. She has advised on multiple financing transactions, confronting a range of legal issues raised by federal, state and international law.

Maduike has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America as one of the top 15 Women of Influence in America. She was a winner of a 2017 Commercial Finance Association (now the Secured Finance Network) 40 under 40 Award, and was recognized as one of the 2018 Top 50 Women in Commercial Finance. She is a member of several legal organizations, including the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law, the Commercial Finance Association (now the Secured Finance Network), the New York City FinTech Women and the New York City Bar Association. She is a board member and the past president of the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law – New York.

Mason is a banking and finance attorney and advises financial institutions, commercial finance companies and hedge funds in the structuring and restructuring of financing transactions. These include revolving credit facilities and term loans for acquisitions and general working capital needs, workout arrangements, lender finance transactions, cross-border financings, and Chapter 11 debtor-in-possession and “exit” financing facilities.

Mason is Otterbourg’s liaison to the SEO Law Fellowship Program and is a member of the Women in Secured Finance Committee of the Secured Finance Network. She is involved in criminal justice reform, helping women in the criminal justice system through her service on the board of the Women’s Prison Association & Home, including as board president. She currently serves as the second vice-chair of New York City’s Community Board 8 in Manhattan, as well as the co-chair of CB 8’s Small Business Committee. In 2017, she was named a “Woman of Distinction” by the New York State Assembly and in 2019 received an “OTTY (Our Town Thanks You Award) by Straus News for her community advocacy.

“Our firm’s long-standing banking and finance experience and highly respected reputation in the asset-based lending market enhances the expertise we bring to our representation of lenders and borrowers in lender financing transactions, providing strategic and targeted insight and solutions tailored to our clients’ objectives,” Mason said.

“Our comfort level in working across a wide range of lending markets gives us the practical and legal experience to work with our clients as partners in structuring, negotiating and documenting various aspects of lender finance transactions,” Maduike said. “We can assist in evaluating loan portfolios, structuring appropriate lending criteria and identifying and solving for issues that will arise with a particular portfolio on an ongoing basis before that issue becomes problematic. Since we have for years represented borrowers in lender finance transactions as well, we have the ability to view and evaluate transactions and loan documentation from the view point of each side of the transaction.”