Jon Kibbe

Jon Kibbe is a founding partner of Richards Kibbe & Orbe. He is a recognized authority on evolving legal issues in the global loan market. He represents investment banks, hedge funds, broker dealers and other financial institutions that transact in the bank loan, high-yield debt and credit derivatives markets. His transactional practice concentrates on complex credit structures and the allocation of credit risk in the fixed income markets. more +

Mr. Kibbe regularly advises clients participating in the market for troubled and non-performing loans and financial claims, providing transactional, compliance and regulatory guidance to clients that originate, restructure and trade commercial and industrial bank loans, distressed bonds, portfolios of real estate loans, claims arising from terminated derivative transactions and other related obligations. He has helped clients create trading solutions for illiquid assets, establish and support trading desks in the secondary loan market, implement strategic trading programs and develop firm-wide compliance and best-practice initiatives.

He also counsels clients engaged in event-driven acquisitions, debt restructurings and innovative financing transactions. He has helped develop and engineer new financial instruments, including the loan credit default swap (LCDS), and new applications of securitization structures, including vehicles formed to purchase and restructure distressed bank loans.  

Mr. Kibbe is a frequent speaker on legal, regulatory and compliance issues arising in the fixed income markets, and regularly writes on topics of interest to active participants in the evolving markets for bank loans, claims and related credit derivatives products.

• An investment adviser seeking to harmonize regulatory and compliance policies across a platform of CLO's, credit opportunity funds and private equity funds.
• Hedge funds and investment banks acquiring claims arising from terminated derivative contracts in the international insolvency proceedings of Lehman Brothers.
• U.S. and European hedge funds and investment banks purchasing and selling claims against insolvent Icelandic banks.
• A trade association developing trading initiatives and best practices designed to increase transparency and liquidity in the U.S. secondary bank loan market in response to the Dodd-Frank legislation.

• An investment bank seeking to settle a series of complex trading disputes and threatened litigations through the novel use of a portfolio total return swap.
• An investment bank seeking to reduce counterparty performance and credit risk between trade date and settlement date in the secondary loan market.
• Working groups of market participants creating the North American and European LCDS documentation and settlement protocols, including the subsequent modifications to the North American "bullet" LCDS.
• Market participants developing documentation to trade secured claims derived from interest rate and foreign exchange swap termination payments embedded in syndicated loan documentation.
• A registered broker-dealer starting a bank-loan trading desk.
• A broker of bank loans registering as a broker-dealer to trade reorganization equity and other securities arising from bank-loan trading activities.

• Selected by Super Lawyers Magazine as a New York Super Lawyer in the areas of securities and corporate finance (2008-2019)

Active Member, The Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA)