Joel Simon | Lawyer

Joel Simon is Pillsbury’s Bank & Leveraged Finance Practice Group leader. He represents clients in a wide range of U.S. and cross-border transactions spanning leveraged, acquisition and commercial finance, private debt and equity investments and joint ventures, special situations, corporate and financial restructurings and general commercial advice.

Joel’s debt finance experience includes representing banks, direct lenders and other providers of capital, as well as borrowers and issuers in first and second lien loans, high-yield and investment-grade debt, asset-based loans and fund finance. Joel frequently advises lenders and borrowers on the U.S. aspects of multijurisdictional finance matters. In addition, Joel has substantial experience advising clients in a variety of industry sectors, including medtech, fintech and technology, and more generally, energy, telecommunications, government contracting, building materials, real estate, hotels and hospitality, aviation, commercial audio, retail, spirits, industrial machinery and financial services.

Joel has lived and worked in New York, London and Paris, giving him experience in a multiplicity of business and regulatory environments. Joel has been recognized as a leading finance lawyer by Chambers Europe and Legal 500 EMEA and is the host of the Pillsbury Industry Insights Podcast.

Representative Experience

Key member of the cross-office, multidisciplinary Pillsbury team advising Sinclair Broadcast Group and its subsidiaries in connection with Sinclair’s acquisition of a regional sports network business from The Walt Disney Company, involving an aggregate of more than $10.0 billion of debt financing.
Co-led the development and implementation of an innovative back-to-back loan structure supported by insurance and enabling an investment grade rating for debt financing provided by institutional lenders to technology companies with valuable intellectual property assets.
Lead finance partner on the financing of an acquisition of a subsidiary from a large multinational company, involving approximately $250 million of debt financing via the conversion of a secured intercompany note into a secured seller note and a new multi-draw term loan provided by the seller.

Advised Immersion Corporation (Nasdaq: IMMR), a premier licensing company focused on innovative haptic technologies, in entering into a definitive agreement with Barnes & Noble Education Inc. (NYSE: BNED) and certain of its existing shareholders and strategic partners, under which BNED will receive $95 million in new equity capital through a $50 million investment led by Immersion and a $45 million fully backstopped equity rights offering.