John T. Owen

“ I love collaborating with clients to structure transactions – we solve problems together to get the best outcome for their business needs.

John is a Corporate Finance | Capital Markets partner with more than 20 years of experience advising issuers, underwriters, and other market participants in a wide range of equity and debt financing transactions. He has significant experience advising on high yield and investment grade debt offerings, initial public offerings, leveraged buyouts, cross-border securities offerings, liability management transactions, and private placements. He also routinely advises U.S. and non‑U.S. companies on a wide range of disclosure, stock exchange, and corporate governance obligations.

John has worked with a wide variety of companies across many industries, including energy, life sciences, technology, telecommunications, financial services, and consumer products. He has significant experience leading cross-border transactions, having led transactions involving jurisdictions such as China, Hong Kong, France, India, Indonesia, Israel, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. He has advised on transactions for issuers as diversified as Community Choice Financial, First Financial Bancorp, FTI Consulting, KeyCorp, Lodha Developers, Monster Beverage, Omnicom, PepsiCo, Seacoast Bank, Southeastern Grocers, Sprint, Tate & Lyle, TransDigm, and Vonage.

John’s experience includes extensive work advising SPACs and potential de-SPAC targets on structuring de-SPAC transactions and related SEC disclosure and corporate governance matters. His recent work involves advising on de-SPAC transactions such as:

• the pending de-SPAC of Tim Hortons’ China business;
• the pending de-SPAC of Sky Harbour’s private aviation services business;
• the de-SPAC of NRC Group, a leading provider of oil and gas emergency response services;
• the proposed de-SPAC of Strike Capital, a leading provider of energy-related construction services; and
• the proposed de-SPAC of Ascend Telecom, a leading provider of mobile telecommunications infrastructure services in India.

John also frequently collaborates with cross-practice teams to advise on and structure in-court and out-of-court restructuring and other liability management transactions. His recent work in this area includes advising major institutional investors on restructuring transactions for Associated Materials, EP Energy, Mesquite Energy, and Washington Prime Group.

John has completed course work at the University of Cambridge on sustainable finance and serves on the firm’s ESG steering committee. He also serves on the firm’s diversity and inclusion committee as well as its New York hiring committee. John has regularly been recognized as an IFLR1000 notable practitioner and by The Legal 500 for his work on capital markets transactions. 

Representative Experience

Capital Raising Transactions

• Sprint Corp. in connection with its $1.0 billion guaranteed notes offering
• Vonage in its $300 million convertible note offering
• RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) in its $300 million convertible note offering
• FTI Consulting in its $316.25 million convertible note offering
• TransDigm Group in its offering of $500 million Senior Subordinated Notes by its UK subsidiary
• Lodha Developers, a leading developer of luxury real estate in India, in its $200 million secured bond offering by its UK subsidiary
• Underwriters in connection with the $231 million public offering of Common Stock by AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) and its promoters, BG Asia Pacific Holdings Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, and GAIL (India) Limited, as international counsel in MGL’s initial public offering of 24,694,500 Equity Shares and listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India

Restructurings and Liability Management Transactions

• Counsel to the ad hoc group of senior secured noteholders, in the chapter 11 cases of EP Energy.
• Counsel to the ad hoc group of first lien noteholders, as noteholders and backstop DIP lenders, in the chapter 11 bankruptcy of Sanchez Energy.
• Counsel to an institutional senior secured noteholder in connection with an out-of-court exchange offer and recapitalization transaction by Associated Materials.
• Lodha Developers International in its consent solicitation relating to $200 million of 12% Guaranteed Senior Notes
• Sprint in connection with its $1.7 billion tender offers for 9.000% Guaranteed Notes and 8.375% Notes
• Frontier Communication in the concurrent fixed price tender offers to purchase any and all of its 6.625% Senior Notes and any and all of its 7.875% Senior Notes, and in a modified Dutch auction tender offer to purchase up to $225 million aggregate principal amount of its 8.250% Senior Notes.

M&A Transactions

• J.F. Lehman in its sale of National Response Corporation and Sprint Energy Services to Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. III, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC
• One Equity Partners in the proposed sale of a majority interest in Strike Capital to Sentinel Energy Services Inc., a SPAC
• New Silk Route in the proposed sale of Ascend Telecom to ROI Acquisition Corp. II, a SPAC. 
• Reynolds American in connection with its acquisition by British American Tobacco.