Public Finance

Nabors, Giblin & Nickerson, P.A. is one of the leading public finance firms in the State of Florida. NG&N's public finance department is one of the largest in the State. NG&N's clients include cities, counties, school districts, industrial development authorities, educational facility authorities, housing authorities, health care providers, health facilities, special districts, community development districts, agencies, interlocal governmental entities, public and private universities, private borrowers, financial institutions and others. NG&N presently serves as bond counsel or disclosure counsel to over 100 different Florida local governments.

NG&N regularly serves in the traditional roles of bond counsel, underwriter's counsel, disclosure counsel, special counsel, trustee's counsel, issuer's counsel and bank's counsel in a wide variety of tax-exempt and taxable governmental financings. NG&N is also a leader in the market with respect to related public finance areas such as derivatives, tax matters and public/private financings. NG&N has developed a reputation throughout the State of Florida for providing innovative solutions for complex financing problems.

Public Infrastructure

Florida continues to be one of the fastest growing states in the Country. With such tremendous growth there is an ever increasing demand by local governments for financing solutions to their additional infrastructure requirements. NG&N is involved in every facet of general public infrastructure financing, including transportation, water and wastewater utilities, solid waste, stormwater, electric utilities, community redevelopment, education, recreation and other general governmental improvements. Within the public infrastructure area, NG&N represents numerous counties, cities, school districts, authorities, special districts and other governmental entities. As infrastructure pressures grow, NG&N has become the State's leader in developing creative approaches to solving its clients' needs. NG&N has been an innovator in the use of special assessments, public/private partnerships, pooled loan programs, tax increment financing techniques, lease purchase arrangements, interlocal partnerships and new and unique revenue sources.

Acute Healthcare/501(c)(3)

NG&N represents a number of premier acute healthcare providers in Florida as bond counsel and disclosure counsel. This representation includes public and private nonprofit entities operating both single facilities and large healthcare systems. Due to its extensive healthcare experience, NG&N is also retained by numerous underwriters and issuers to provide disclosure services on financings for acute healthcare providers and systems. Such financings include taxable, tax-exempt, fixed rate, variable rate demand, stand-alone and master trust indenture transactions, as well as derivative products such as interest rate swaps, swaptions and interest rate locks.

NG&N is also involved in numerous transactions for other 501(c)(3) entities providing healthcare services such as nursing homes, hospices and organ service providers, both in the roles of bond counsel and underwriter's counsel. NG&N also represents the issuer of bonds for such transactions.

Senior Living

NG&N has extensive experience, both within Florida and other southeastern states and Texas, providing bond counsel and underwriter's counsel services on senior living transactions including the financing and refinancing of nursing homes, assisted and independent living facilities, memory care facilities and continuing care retirement communities. Our attorneys have participated in hundreds of tax-exempt and taxable conduit issuances that have financed and refinanced billions of dollars' worth of nonprofit facilities for start-ups, acquisitions and expansion/repositioning projects.  This involvement includes extensive knowledge of obligated groups, master trust indenture document structures, bond anticipation note pre-development expense structures, liquidity facilities/support agreement structures and interim financing alternatives.  NG&N also has strong expertise in the finance-related nuances surrounding Florida Office of Insurance Regulation rules relating to continuing care retirement communities and the sophisticated federal tax analyses regarding reimbursement rules, private use, remediation, substantial rehabilitation, integrated interest rate swaps, and arbitrage and rebate restrictions.  All of which allows NG&N to bring a large amount of senior living finance experience to the table.

Public/Private Education

NG&N is the leader in Florida public school district financings and has represented issuers and underwriters as bond counsel, disclosure counsel and underwriter's counsel in hundreds of financings totaling tens of billions dollars for Florida school districts.  NG&N presently serves in one of these capacities to 33 of the 67 Florida school districts, including all of the most active issuers in the State. Such financings include general obligation bonds, tax anticipation notes, revenue anticipation notes, certificates of participation, sales tax revenue bonds, qualified school construction bonds, capital improvement bonds and qualified zone academy bonds. NG&N brought the first certificate of participation/lease-purchase case to the Florida Supreme Court (State of Florida v. Brevard County, Florida) and was instrumental in the Florida Supreme Court case (State of Florida v. School Board of Sarasota County, Florida) approving master lease-purchase programs for Florida school districts.  It also played an instrumental role in preserving this financing structure in its role as counsel to the Florida School Board Association in Strand v. Escambia County, Florida.

Additionally, NG&N provides bond counsel, disclosure counsel, underwriter's counsel, bank's counsel and trustee's counsel services with respect to financings for K-12 public charter and private schools, and for public and private colleges and universities.  Over the years, the firm has served on nearly 100 such financings totaling well over a billion dollars for the benefit of scores of schools and thousands of students across the State of Florida.  This experience comprises both publicly offered bonds and private bank placements, including bridge-loans, draw-down debt and transactions hedged by interest rate swaps.  The majority of these dealings have involved nonprofit educational facilities financed and refinanced through the issuance of debt via conduit issuers.  Our attorneys have extensive expertise with the various legal issues, security structures, covenant requirements and complex tax analyses associated with these types of financings.

Affordable Housing Finance

NG&N has the largest affordable housing finance practice in Florida, acting as bond counsel, disclosure counsel, issuer's counsel, underwriter's counsel, borrower's counsel and lender's counsel on a variety of tax-exempt and taxable housing transactions. In addition to representing various local housing finance authorities, NG&N acts as co-special counsel to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation, and is the lead counsel to Florida Housing's affordable housing guarantee fund. NG&N assists in the financing and refinancing of multifamily properties through the issuance of tax-exempt and taxable bonds, the application of 4% and 9% tax credits, the structuring of SAIL, SHIP, HOME and other second mortgage financing, as well as other financing vehicles. Representative credit structures include Fannie Mae, HUD 221(d) and Freddie Mac programs, bank letters of credit, private placements and others. Likewise, NG&N has broad experience in the financing of single family affordable housing as bond counsel, disclosure counsel, underwriter's counsel and issuer's counsel, both by means of tax-exempt and taxable bonds and through down-payment assistance and other programs.

Community Development Districts

NG&N is the leading bond counsel firm in the State of Florida for community development districts. Community development districts are local units of special purpose government which are created under State statute to assist in the financing, construction and maintenance of public infrastructure to support development. NG&N brings expertise to these specialized governmental clients in the technical areas of federal income tax issues, State law issues and the law relating to the imposition and levy of special assessments. NG&N attorneys have been innovating this area of practice for years and bring not only experience but creative solutions to this dynamic form of government, particularly as the real estate market collapsed in the State. NG&N has represented community development districts providing public infrastructure to most of the national homebuilders in Florida, as well as a large number of local builders and developers which may be establishing a district for the first time.

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