Overview
Bill Hermann is a partner in the firm's Corporate and Securities Department. He is experienced in securities issuances and compliance, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate matters for both public and private clients. He has played leadership roles in initial public offerings, secondary public offerings, Rule 144A transactions and follow-on registrations, and private placements of both debt and equity securities.
Bill has extensive experience in preparing periodic reports, registration statements and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His practice also includes stock and asset purchases and sales and securitizations as well as the formation and structuring of various companies, joint ventures and investment funds while representing issuers, underwriters and institutional investors. He also has lectured and prepared client memoranda on corporate governance and Sarbanes-Oxley-related issues.
Representative Matters
- Lead corporate and securities attorney to a large apartment real estate investment trust (REIT) in over 30 public equity and debt offerings as well as various private offerings of debt and equity securities and strategic investment transactions
- Counsel to a large aviation, defense and aerospace company in the registration of $1 billion of debt securities and the public offering and underwritten issuance of $600 million of Notes due 2013 and $400 million of Notes due 2033 and associated listing on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange
- Representation of a large apartment REIT in each of the five major merger and acquisition transactions in which it has acquired other publicly traded real estate investment trusts
- Counsel to an investor in connection with its investment in Class A Common Stock and Options of, and bridge loan to, a financial services company
- Counsel to a large office REIT in connection with its reorganization and offering of $1.44 billion of commercial mortgage pass through certificates
- Representation of a large apartment REIT in its joint venture with other publicly traded REITs that created a broadband Internet provider to apartment communities
- Counsel to a large office REIT in its initial public offering of common stock in connection with its formation through the consolidation of four real estate opportunity funds
- Counsel to an inland cruise boat company in a secondary offering of its shares of common stock
- Counsel to a real estate opportunity fund in its formation and organization, including structuring of a REIT and operating partnership and negotiating terms with investors. Subsequently negotiated with investors terms of combination of this and other three opportunity funds with and into a publicly traded office REIT as noted above
Practice Focus
- Business Contracts
- Corporate Counseling
- Corporate Finance and Securities
- ESG Counsel and Sustainable Finance
- General Corporate
- Investment Management
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Private Funds: Fund/Sponsor Representation
- Private Investment in Public Entities (PIPEs)
- Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
- Rule 144A and Other Exempt Offerings
- Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
- SEC and Stock Exchange Compliance
- SEC Registered Offerings (Debt and Equity)
Memberships
Chicago Bar Association
National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
Admitted
Illinois, 1990
Education
Indiana University Maurer School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 1990
- Order of the Coif
- Editorial Staff, Indiana Law Journal
University of Notre Dame, B.A., Economics, 1983
Notable Engagements
The Bond Buyer’s 2024 Midwest Region Deal of the YearChapman served as bond counsel in a complex new money and refinancing transaction totaling $1.3 billion for the benefit of The University of Chicago, named The Bond Buyer's 2024 Midwest Region Deal of the Year.
Insights
Publications
- Co-author, "SEC Proposes New Rules to Update Statistical Disclosures for Banking Registrants," The Banking Law Journal, January 2020
- Co-author and contributing editor, "Audit Committee Guide 2003 - A Handbook of Audit Committee Responsibilities," 2003
- "Arbitration of Securities Disputes: Rodriguez and New Arbitration Rules Leave Investors Holding a Mixed Bag," 65 Indiana Law Journal 697, 1990