Susan Ariel is a results-oriented attorney with over 25 years of experience negotiating and documenting direct and third-party financing transactions and syndications. Her perspective on municipal finance sector is broad, having served in-house with two authorities active in housing and healthcare, counsel for an equipment-leasing team of a nationally-ranked bank and analyst for Moody’s Investors Service. Her clients appreciate her ability to manage the transaction, solve problems and stay focused on the closing.
Susan’s experience includes work with an extensive range of lease and loan structures for projects as varied as medical care equipment and facilities, computer hardware and software, energy-related projects and aircraft. Susan has recently concentrated on financing electronic health records systems for healthcare institutions and the unique security issues posed by such equipment.
Representative Engagements
- Represented lenders in transactional matters nationally and closed over $900 million in tax-exempt transactions in more than 30 states
- Lender counsel on a three-schedule $51 million tax-exempt capital lease funding of an electronic medical record system and other medical equipment for a nonprofit hospital system in New York; 50% of the funding was syndicated at closing through a participation agreement
- Lender counsel on a four-schedule $21 million tax-exempt funding (including a refinancing) of three medical helicopters for a nonprofit air medical services company in West Virginia, guaranteed by obligated group of end-user institutions pursuant to guaranty agreements and notes issued under master trust indentures
- Lender counsel on a $40 million tax-exempt “synthetic” operating lease line for a health system in North Carolina
- Lender counsel on a $50 million electronic medical record system financed with a tax-exempt capital lease and a taxable lease intended as security for a health center in Georgia (tax and economic issues dictated the two-lease approach)
- Lender counsel on a $21 million refinancing of a tax-exempt bond benefiting a North Dakota healthcare system using loan documentation and identifying unencumbered equipment as collateral
- Lender counsel on $13 million of multiple tax-exempt equipment fundings for a tribal organization hospital in the Navajo Nation in Arizona; crafted documents to address corporate, insurance and security issues specific to the borrower
Education
- Emory University School of Law, J.D.
- Tufts University, B.A., cum laude
Admissions
- State of New Jersey
- State of New York