Practices

The head of Seward & Kissel’s renowned Maritime and Transportation Finance practice, Mike Timpone has played a substantial role in shaping the evolution of finance in the shipping industry in the 21st century. He has spent his career advising major industry players on their most significant financings and other transactions, and through those deals has driven larger trends that define the maritime space today.

Mike devotes much of his practice to the representation of lenders and borrowers in secured loans and other financings. He also regularly advises on the formation of joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, asset finance transactions, securities transactions, and restructurings.

Mike has spent his entire legal career in the Maritime and Transportation group at Seward & Kissel, which has operated the leading shipping practice for multiple generations. After guiding shipping clients through multiple economic cycles, he assumed leadership of the group in 2017, in a period that heralded an influx of private equity investment, an increase in alternative lenders, and extensive industry consolidation. Mike has helped banks, shipowners, and a wide variety of other clients navigate—and drive—these trends through transactions, including the following:

  • Represented Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank as agent in connection with a $260,000,000 senior secured term loan and revolving credit facility to Dorian LPG Ltd.
  • Represented Eagle Bulk Shipping Inc. in connection with its $485,000,000 corporate facility.
  • Represented Blue Ocean in connection with a $122,000,000 Facility made available to SEACOR Marine.
  • Represented DNB Bank ASA in connection with a $325,000,000 Facility to Tidewater Inc.
  • Represented DNB Bank ASA in connection with a $175,000,000 multi-currency senior secured green term loan facility, revolving credit facility and L/C facility to Eneti Inc.

Several transactions that Mike executed have won industry honors, including the Lloyd’s List Americas “Deal of the Year” Award and the Marine Money “Deal of the Year” Award in 2020, 2021 and 2023. Mike is recognized by Chambers USA and Chambers Global in Transportation: Shipping: Finance and Legal 500, as well as by New York Super Lawyers.

Mike is a licensed member of the bar of the State of New York and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He is the past chair of the Marine Financing Committee for the Maritime Law Association of the United States. Mike received a B.A. with high honors from Rutgers College and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Publications
Recognition