Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Richard L. Sigal, a native of Hartford, Connecticut, joined Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP in 1964 and was elected to the partnership in 1971. His excellence in developing financing program plans, as well as his expertise in providing legal counsel and assistance once the plan has been instituted, has been demonstrated throughout his career including drafting significant financing legislation in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Indiana, Montana, New Jersey, New York and Wyoming and for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. He is a graduate of Phillips Academy (Andover), Yale University, and University of Chicago Law School, where he was chairman of the Hinton Moot Court Committee. In addition to his full time partnership practice, he is an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut Law School where he teaches a fall semester public finance seminar.

Administration and Pro Bono Assistance

Mr. Sigal has served a ten year term as a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Mr. Sigal is a member of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association where he served a two year term as Chairman of its Municipal Law Section. He has been a long time Trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission contributing to several special committee reports and has chaired several Bond Buyer and other public finance conferences. During the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Mr. Sigal served as an unpaid consultant to the Department of Treasury meeting every Saturday one year during the summer months regarding the establishment of the centerpiece of the President’s urban agenda, the Urban Infrastructure Bank, the predecessor concept to the various proposals currently for a National Development Bank.

Distressed State, Local and Programmatic Restructuring

Mr. Sigal has managed and structured a variety of (tax exempt, taxable, general obligation, revenue based, private activity, credit enhanced) bond and securitization issues as bond or finance counsel for various States, public authorities and local governments and as counsel for various investment banking firms, including extensive experience in working with state treasurers and budget officials, rating agencies, financial advisors and underwriters on complex and innovative new programs such as, state regulatory, financing and oversight statutes for its distressed municipalities, such as the City of Yonkers Budget Act, Municipal Assistance Corporation for the City of New York and years later for the City of Troy and the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority in New York and the Bridgeport and Waterbury State-controlled review boards in Connecticut, each of which included successfully structured finance solutions rather than recourse to, and work out under, the Federal Bankruptcy Act. Mr. Sigal was the partner in charge of the firm’s participation in the New York State Local Government Assistance Corporation financings which permanently funded (rather than relying on annual renewals of notes) the $5 billion Spring Borrowing requirements of the State of New York and multi-billion dollar tax-exempt refundings for the Municipal Assistance Corporation for the City of New York.

Mr. Sigal’s expertise in working through these structured solutions benefitted from his experiences serving as general obligation bond counsel for many municipal issuers for many years, particularly in New York such as Westchester, Rockland and Erie Counties, the Cities of Buffalo and Binghamton and many towns and villages.

Mr. Sigal also served as underwriter’s counsel in connection with the taxable $2.8 billion New Jersey Economic Development Authority, State Pension Funding Bonds, one of several efforts by the various states to address the issue of unfunded pension funds and other employee benefits.

Housing Finance

Mr. Sigal has served as bond counsel to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority since its inception in 1973 and as bond or underwriter’s counsel for the many state housing finance agencies listed below. Mr. Sigal is responsible for drafting a unique bond reserve fund credit enhancement of the State of Connecticut available upon approval of the State Treasurer by the enabling legislation of various state authorities, such as the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, upon a finding of self sufficiency from revenues generated from the facilities or loans to support the bonds issued therefor and which recently was credited with the upgrading of several Connecticut authorities’ bond ratings to the equivalent of the State's rating.

Tim Blake is a Managing Director in the public finance group at Moody�s Tim�s responsibilities cover state and local government ratings analysis and surveillance, and he is a point person for Moody�s on government pension analysis.� Tim has over twenty years experience in the municipal market and worked previously as a credit risk manager and ratings advisor at an investment bank and as a letter of credit and liquidity facility banker for a commercial bank. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Jon Schotz has 30 years of distressed investing and financial advisory experience, most notably in areas of distressed tax-exempt credits. Mr. Schotz is co-managing partner and serves as co-portfolio manager for Saybrook’s Municipal Opportunity Funds. In 1990, Mr. Schotz co-founded Saybrook. Mr. Schotz served as the financial advisor to the Orange County Investment Pool Creditors’ Committee and helped lead Saybrook’s team that restructured and disposed of more than $2 billion in letter-of-credit portfolios. Prior to founding Saybrook, Mr. Schotz was responsible for opening the Los Angeles office of Ehrlich Bober & Co., Inc. Upon his departure, he was Executive Vice President, a member of the Management Committee and a member of Ehrlich Bober’s Board of Directors. Mr. Schotz received his BA and MPPM degrees from Yale University.

He is a business owner, and the founder and benefactor of The Saluda Charitable Foundation. The State Treasurer is the "private banker" for South Carolina. He is responsible for the investment, cash management, and safekeeping of the State's general and restricted funds and the assets of the South Carolina Retirement Systems. The Treasurer is the Vice Chairman of the State Budget & Control Board. The Budget & Control Board [Agency] is at the core of South Carolina's State Government, handling functions such as: the South Carolina Retirement System, State Procurement, State Insurance Programs, The Budget Office, State Auditor's Office, State Human Resources' Office, General Services, the Budget Office and the State Technology Office. The Treasurer is a member of the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission, which manages the system's approximately twenty-five billion dollar investment pool. The South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission's goal is to maximize the return of the system's assets while safeguarding capital for it's retirees. The Treasurer is the custodian of these funds. The Treasurer is the Chairman of the State Board of Financial Institutions. The Board supervises financial institutions under its jurisdiction through the Bank Examining Division and supervises mortgage originators and lenders, finance companies, pay day lenders, and title lenders through its Consumer Finance Division. The Treasurer is the Vice Chairman of the South Carolina Tobacco Authority. The South Carolina Tobacco Authority administers the tobacco settlement funds. The Treasurer is the custodian of these funds. The Treasurer is the Vice Chairman of the South Carolina Education Authority. The Treasurer is the custodian of the Authority's funds. Away from the office, the Treasurer is busy serving others. In 2000, he founded and is the benefactor of The Saluda Charitable Foundation. The Foundation focuses its giving on the education, nutrition and medical care of children, especially those with disabilities. Saluda Charitable has served more than 300,000 meals, built a church, renovated schools and hospitals, sponsored medical missions and food pantries.

Mr. Zucker is a Partner at Hawkins, and has been a member of the Firm’s Management Committee since 1991.� He is a past President of NABL.� In 2007, Mr.�Zucker received the Career Achievement Award from The Municipal Forum of New York.� He was awarded the Friel Medal by NABL in 2012 for Distinguished Service in Public Finance.� Mr.�Zucker was selected in 2013 and in 2017 “Lawyer of the Year” in Public Finance Law, having received the highest voting average during Best Lawyers’ comprehensive peer-review evaluation.� He has been selected for three years as one of the 500 leading lawyers from over 1.1 million lawyers.

Frank Chin graduated from Stuyvesant  High School in New York City in 1967.  Mr. Chin received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1971, a M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology  in 1973 and received his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in  1978.  He joined the New York City Transportation Administration in 1974 as a planner and analyst.  During his career with the City he was involved in a number of major projects.He joined the Smith Barney, Harris Upham’s Public Finance Department in 1978. During his career he ran various areas including  Infrastructure/Transportation Finance, Refundings and Airports.  He became head of the Public Finance Department in 1993.  Since then Citigroup has firmly established itself as a leader in the field.   He is a member of the Board of Directors of The Bond Markets Association (TBMA), and Vice Chairman of the Municipal Division of the TBMA during 2001 and Chairman during 2002. He is married and has two children.

Mr. Shields serves as Head of the Public Finance Department (since 2007) at Morgan Stanley.  This group provides banking and underwriting services for financing of state and local governments, health care, higher education, public power, toll road, airport, housing, and student loan entities in the United States.  Prior to becoming Head of Public Finance, Mr. Shields served as Head of the Midwest Region for Morgan Stanley’s public finance efforts.  Mr. Shields joined Morgan Stanley in 1996 after working as a Vice President with Prudential Securities.   Prior to joining the securities industry, Mr. Shields served as President of the State Controlling Board and Deputy Director of the Ohio Office of Budget and Management (“OBM”).  Mr. Shields holds a B.A. in History from the Ohio State University, an M.A. in American Politics and International Relations from Columbia University, and an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School. 

Susan is a Senior Portfolio Manager for Allstate Investments, LLC.  She currently manages the below investment grade portion of the Allstate portfolio where she was a portfolio manager from 2001-2006 and rejoined in June 2010.  Susan is a former Vice President at Bank of America where she worked in the Real Estate Group.  Susan earned a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics and an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.  She is a CFA Charterholder as well as a member of the Chicago Municipal Analyst Society.

Mr. McNally is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP and was President of the National Association of Bond Lawyers (“NABL”) during the 2010-2011 term.� He is a frequent speaker regarding the application of the federal securities laws to municipal securities and served as� Project Coordinator for the Third Edition of Disclosure Roles of Counsel in State and Local Government Securities Offerings, a joint publication of the American Bar Association and NABL that was published in October 2009, which was referred to by The New York Times as “the new disclosure bible for municipal bond lawyers.”� Mr. McNally was awarded the Friel Medal in September 2015 for “distinguished service in public finance.”� He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Georgetown University Law Center.