Law firm Arent Fox has developed an innovative approach to speed up financing for pricey infrastructure and other capital-intensive projects for public and nonprofit institutions, including hospitals and some healthcare systems.
The law firm integrates a team of attorneys from its finance, real estate, construction and tax practices to advise and move projectS forward in a collaborative approach instead of step-by-step.
The effort, dubbed the Mission-Ready Capital Improvement Solution, is meant to enable smarter and faster project financing options so that public and nonprofit organizations can be mission-ready with the capital they need, said Richard Krainin, head of Arent Fox's Nonprofit Finance Practice in New York.
When needed, the program also brings together stakeholders, such as developers, engineer, builders, financial advisors and the healthcare institution's decision-makers.
For example, when the Arent Fox team advised a West Coast academic medical center on expanding its hospital capacity in targeted areas to advance its strategic growth, the team worked with an architectural firm, a financial advisor and an investment bank to help the healthcare provider evaluate ownership, development and financing approaches for building a new free-standing hospital facility.
The team's analysis was shared with the rating agencies before being presented to the medical center, Krainin said.
"The Mission-Ready team of lawyers is being brought into the discussion much earlier in the process, helping to provide legal advice on structuring the transaction at the most favorable terms for these social infrastructure projects," he said.
The Mission-Ready team also aids its nonprofit clients by recommending financing alternatives, so they
can then "advance their big-ticket pipeline projects most effectively, at the lowest cost and with the shortest timetable," said James Frankel, chair of the firm's national Construction Group.
Based on the capital improvements' initiative, the Financial Times recognized Frankel, Krainin and Arent Fox as law firm innovators in 2012 for coming up with a cost-effective, integrated and streamlined method to enable capital projects to the sector.