MIAMI, Dec. 17 2004 – LAWFUEL – First with law news — Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. was bond counsel for a $750 million bond issue selected by The Bond Buyer as its
national “Deal of the Year.” The Bond Buyer is the premier publication
reporting public financing nationally.
Lawyers from the firm’s Miami and Cleveland offices served as bond counsel
to Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Citizens, a statutorily-
created insurer of last resort that provides property and casualty insurance
to qualified risk in the state, issued the $750 million in bonds to augment
the resources of its High-Risk Account, thereby enhancing its ability to pay
claims arising from windstorm and other weather-related events. The deal was
completed just before Florida was hit by the first of four hurricanes that
marked one of the worst hurricane seasons in the state’s history.
“While Squire Sanders always works hard to find creative solutions for
clients’ challenges, it was particularly gratifying to help Citizens secure
the additional resources it needed to better serve the residents of Florida,
particularly in light of the historic nature of the 2004 hurricane season,”
said Miami partner Albert A. del Castillo.
Del Castillo, who heads the firm’s Miami office, led a team of Squire
Sanders lawyers who worked with Citizens, its investment bankers and its
financial adviser to structure the bond issue. The complex and innovative
financing was structured as nine separate series of taxable, auction-rate
securities.
The Bond Buyer, a publication that is considered the voice of the public
finance market, selected the Florida bond issue from five regional Deals of
the Year. The deals selected represent the best of innovative work in the
municipal finance field. Squire Sanders served as bond counsel on two of the
five selected bond issues. Lawyers in the firm’s Phoenix office, coordinated
by Phoenix partner Charles E. James, structured a bond deal that enabled the
Arizona School Facilities Board to help pay for improvements to bring existing
public school facilities up to the board’s established standards.
Squire Sanders, a nationally recognized bond counsel since the beginning
of the 20th century, has been consistently listed among the top five bond
firms in the United States by official rankings published by Thomson Financial
Securities Data, and has been the top-ranked bond counsel in Florida in nine
of the past 11 years.
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P., founded in 1890, is one of the largest
international law firms with approximately 700 lawyers who represent the
interests of clients throughout the world. The firm’s offices in the Americas
include Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New
York, Palo Alto, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tampa, Tysons Corner, Washington DC
and Rio de Janeiro. In Europe, offices are in Bratislava, Brussels, Budapest,
London, Madrid, Milan, Moscow and Prague. In Asia, offices are in Beijing,
Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. The firm also has an association with legal
firms in Bucharest, Dublin and Kyiv.
