William A. Gray

Bill Gray is a partner in Chapman's Banking and Financial Services Department. His practice is focused on municipal and corporate finance, asset securitization, including structured credit, municipal tender option bonds and other ABS structures.

In particular, Bill regularly represents banks, investment banks and other financial institutions in matters involving TOBs, CLOs, credit-linked notes, total return swaps and other finance strategies. Bill is experienced in the negotiation and use of derivatives and other financial products in private and capital market transactions that involve innovative tax, regulatory, and risk and capital management strategies. He has extensive knowledge of the regulation of these products and assists clients in structuring transactions in ways that address compliance challenges.

Throughout his career, Bill has been at the forefront of the development of unique financial instruments and strategies, and has earned a reputation as a creative problem-solver, achieving several industry and transaction firsts. Examples include: the first municipal variable rate advance refunding, the first asset repackagings to utilize credit default, interest rate and currency swaps; the first primary and secondary market municipal coupon stripping transactions; the first tender option bond programs, including the first to be structured as tax partnerships; the first tax exempt variable rate demand preferred shares, the first post-crisis proprietary TOBs, the first TOB of tax exempt variable rate term preferred shares and auction preferred shares, the earliest synthetic CLOs and the earliest municipal bond CDOs.

During the financial crisis, Bill worked with numerous financial institutions to manage risks and workout situations and to solve other problems relating to their assets and exposures. Bill advises bank clients frequently on Dodd-Frank and other regulatory compliance issues and new rules.

He has authored or contributed to numerous industry letters commenting on proposed SEC rules and on numerous occasions has met with regulators to help clients address difficult interpretive questions.

Bill is a frequent panelist on a variety of topics related to the areas described above.