Armand A. Perry

Armand Perry is a partner in Smith Anderson’s Finance team, focusing on corporate finance and complex commercial transactions.

Armand has extensive experience in structuring, negotiating, documenting, and closing debt finance transactions. As lender’s counsel, he has represented major commercial banks acting as lead agent or participant in the senior syndicated financing of strategic acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and recapitalizations ranging from $250 million to in excess of $1 billion. As borrower’s counsel, Armand has advised sponsored and corporate borrowers, including public companies, start-ups and growth companies, in obtaining secured and unsecured financing critical to their capital structure and operations.

Armand's credit facility experience encompasses multicurrency, investment grade, cash flow, ABL, second lien, mezzanine, subordinated, and DIP financings, as well as multijurisdictional security for U.S. and non-U.S. credits. Armand is experienced with related areas of finance such as bond offerings, redemptions, securitization, public finance, intercreditor arrangements, and derivatives. He works with clients in a range of industries, including agtech, automotive, aviation, banking, construction, energy, healthcare, information technology, life science, logistics, manufacturing, media, pharmaceutical, retail, sports franchises, and telecommunications. Armand additionally acts on behalf of banks, bank holding companies and insurance companies raising capital via registered or unregistered offerings of senior and subordinated notes or utilizing Federal Home Loan Bank facilities. 

Armand is the former chair of the UCC and Commercial Transactions Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Business Law Section and a member of Smith Anderson’s legal opinion committee, with responsibility for New York and North Carolina finance opinions. Prior to joining Smith Anderson, Armand practiced corporate law for seven years in New York and Paris with a global law firm. He received that firm’s Pro Bono Award for representing a microfinance lender in developing countries and for assisting a U.N. prosecutor handling war crimes trials in Kosovo.

While in law school, Armand earned a master’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy, and served as a senior editor of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked with a South Korean law firm in Seoul, Korea, and served as honors legal intern in the Office of General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense. Before studying law, he was employed at the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Recognition

• Chambers USA, Banking & Finance (2022-2026)
• The Best Lawyers in America®
  • Banking and Finance Law (2014-2027)
  • "Lawyer of the Year," Raleigh, Banking and Finance Law (2021)
• Certificate in International Law, Columbia Law School
• Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Columbia Law School
• Senior Editor, Columbia Law Review
• White & Case Pro Bono Award

Education

• Columbia Law School, J.D., 1999
• Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), M.A., with honors, 1999
• Princeton University, B.A., 1992
• The Westminster Schools, valedictorian, 1988

Bar & Court Admissions

• North Carolina Bar Association
• Co-Chair, Commercial Law and UCC Committee, Business Law Section 
• Smith Anderson Opinion Committee
• Carolina Triangle Princeton Club

• Represented a bank holding company in the $30 billion financing of its acquisition of substantially all loans and customer deposits of a bridge bank in FDIC receivership, and in the related $70 billion line of credit provided by the receiver.
• Represented an insurance company in connection with four revolving credit facilities, a credit tenant lease and a bridge loan representing approximately $2 billion in aggregate funding. 
• Advised a major financial institution on a bespoke collateral transaction permitting the pledge of up to $15 billion in marketable securities as custodied collateral for an existing financing, with custody structured to provide the lender with exclusive contractual control while allowing the company to exercise flexible effective control.   
• Advised major and minor league sports franchises on credit facilities utilized to finance acquisitions and local development.
• Represented a contract research organization on all aspects of structuring, negotiating, documenting and closing a $300 million receivables securitization.
• Represented a North Carolina bank or its holding company in multiple registered or private offerings of senior notes, subordinated notes and bank notes aggregating $3.8 billion in proceeds.  
• Advised a Nasdaq-listed bank holding company on its assumption and redemption of approximately $2 billion in outstanding bond series in connection with its acquisition of a NYSE-listed bank holding company. 
• Represented a NYSE-listed energy company in a strategic alliance with an on-site power generation systems company for repowering a 30-megawatt project involving distributed generation systems at two sites.