Christopher Melvin joined law firm Nixon Peabody LLP as a managing director of public finance with a focus on stadium and sports finance, the firm announced Monday.
A lawyer by training, Melvin has been an investment banker for 30 years. His most recent post was at Capital Markets Advisors LLC, a Long Island-based independent financial advisory firm specializing in public finance, where he managed the firm's sports and entertainment clients.
Upon his readmission to the bar, Melvin will become counsel in Nixon Peabody's public finance practice — his first legal role in three decades.
"It's a significant change, but given my investment banking background and legal training, the two coexist pretty well and I think it can be a real added benefit to the firm," Melvin said.
"Chris is well-known to a lot of people at the various leagues and teams," said Arthur McMahon, head of Nixon Peabody's public finance practice. "Reintroducing himself to people with a new role going forward and talking about our expertise in these transactions is something we can be starting right away."
Melvin's career began as a lawyer in the mid-1970s. In 1978, he was recruited into investment banking by Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis. He spent four years there before moving on to a similar role at Bear Stearns, where he spent a decade. After nine years at Merrill Lynch, he moved to UBS PaineWebber in 2001, where he worked in public finance for another six years.
Nixon Peabody, with more than 700 attorneys, is one of the largest law firms in the world. It currently ranks second among underwriter's counsel, working on 66 issues totaling $16.7 billion so far this year, according to Thomson Reuters.
"Since the year 2000, we have been fairly prominent in the sports arena," McMahon said, estimating that the firm's stadium and sports finance team has been involved in more than $5 billion of financings. "The Jets, Giants, Mets, and Yankees were major transactions."
McMahon said it is a difficult time in the sports and stadiums sector — bond sales for stadiums and arenas total $1.1 billion so far in 2010, down 40% from 2009 — but there are still opportunities for the legal team.
"A lot of these facilities, when they did their projections of cash flow and how much they could afford to spend on the building, assumed they would have this revenue, and not having it makes a significant dent in those projections," he said.
Melvin will be responsible for providing financial advice on these projects, as well as for utility finance and project development, and infrastructure finance.
In recent years he has been financial adviser for stadiums built for the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts, and Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals. He also represented the New York governor's office in opening the New Meadowlands Stadium for the New York Jets and the New York Giants, and served as financial adviser to the New York Yankees during efforts to fund their new stadium.
"As we move forward, the opportunities are not perhaps as great," Melvin said, noting that ticket sales are a challenge given the economic environment. But he said there are several big projects on the horizon, including those in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Minnesota, as well as restructurings, mergers and acquisition opportunities, and teams up for sale.
