Kos Vavelidis advises originators, issuers, arrangers, investment managers and investors on a broad range of structured finance, derivatives, securitisation and asset-backed lending matters, with a particular focus on Collateralised Loan Obligations (CLOs).
He has experience representing the majority of arrangers, warehouse providers and a range of collateral managers and investors on European CLO transactions and warehouse facilities. He has recently represented clients such as Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Neuberger Berman, ICG, Oak Hill Advisors, Ares and CVC.
His experience includes structuring CLOs and public and private securitisations to comply with a variety of regulatory requirements, including the Dodd-Frank Act and the EU and UK Securitisation Regulations. He advises on the EU and UK regulatory framework, including the risk retention and transparency requirements regimes, as they apply to European and U.S. transactions.
He has been at the forefront of developments in the European CLO space and has been involved in the development of new concepts, including uptier priming debt language, new ESG language, rating agency criteria, sanctions language and commercial concepts. Kos has spoken at industry conferences and been quoted in the press on legal developments in the industry.
Kos also has extensive experience in derivatives. He has acted for banks, hedge funds, private equity sponsors, and corporate borrowers, sovereigns, and sovereign wealth funds on a wide spectrum of cross-jurisdictional matters, with a particular emphasis on OTC and structured derivatives transactions in respect of currencies, rates, commodities and credit.
Before joining DLA Piper, Kos worked at a major a US law firm for four years and a Magic Circle firm for six years. He has previously been seconded to the structured finance legal team of a leading global investment bank and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, where he acted as the Determinations Committee Secretary for all regions and worked on the publication of key derivatives documentation.
Kos graduated with a Law degree from King's College London in 2011 and worked as a summer analyst at Goldman Sachs and a diplomatic advisor with the Greek mission to the United Nations in New York before qualifying as a solicitor.