Mr. Cunningham is a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and serves as a Co-Chair of the firm’s Global Finance Practice Group. Mr. Cunningham represents lenders, borrowers, lessors, lessees, arrangers, sponsors, private equity investors, monoline insurers and LBO, investment and hedge funds, and other capital users and providers and credit enhancers in a wide variety of U.S., European, Asian and Latin American financing transactions. Mr. Cunningham is a Vice Chair of the American Bar Association First Lien/Second Lien Model Intercreditor Agreement Task Force, and co-author of the ABA Model First Lien/Second Lien Intercreditor Agreement.
He has extensive experience in a wide range of financing arrangements, including secured and unsecured, multi-borrower, multi-currency revolving credit, term loan, letter of credit and BA facilities, first lien/second lien financings, acquisition and bridge financings, equipment financings, project financings, restructurings and DIP facilities, bankruptcy exit financings, complex structured financings, asset monetizations and securitizations, leveraged lease financings, and private placements.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Cunningham served as the co-chair of the Global Lending and Structured Finance practice at Jones Day, where he was a partner since 1995. Before that, he was a principal financing partner with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.
Fluent in French, Mr. Cunningham received his law degree in 1972 from Columbia University where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He is a former captain in the U.S. Army.
Representative transactions include major domestic and cross border energy, health care, finance, entertainment, telecom, technology, mining, steel, maritime and other specialized industry acquisition financings, out-of-court restructurings, bankruptcy DIP and exit financings, and securitization and other structured financings. Mr. Cunningham also has completed a number of first-of-their-kind transactions, including some of the earliest investment bank bridge acquisition financings; stranded cost regulatory receivables securitization; cross-border, tax-advantaged combined minority equity interest/deconsolidation structured financings; and innovative out-of-court debt restructurings and recapitalizations.