Senior Legal Counsel

BBVA is a global company with more than 160 years of history that operates in more than 25 countries where we serve more than 80 million customers. We are more than 121,000 professionals working in multidisciplinary teams with profiles as diverse as financiers, legal experts, data scientists, developers, engineers and designers.

BBVA is growing its Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB) in London. We are hiring an experienced and commercially minded lawyer to join our dynamic and growing UK legal team. Reporting directly to the Head of Legal in the UK, this role focuses on UK and European leveraged finance transactions as well as offering exposure to other debt finance areas, providing a strong platform for professional development and career growth within a leading international bank. 

About the job:

The Leveraged Finance team in BBVA London originates, analyses, structures, executes and risk-manages complex cross-border leveraged finance transactions. You will be a key legal advisor to the Leveraged Finance team, supporting origination and execution of a broad range of debt transactions including acquisition finance, unitranche, second lien, TLBs and high-yield bonds. The role will suit a lawyer with a practical, solution-oriented mindset who thrives in a fast-paced, deal-driven environment and who has deep market knowledge of the UK/EU leveraged lending markets.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Advising on the structuring and execution of complex leveraged finance transactions, particularly sponsor-backed deals across the UK and Europe;
• Drafting, reviewing and negotiating senior and subordinated leveraged facility agreements, intercreditor agreements, commitment/mandate letters, term sheets, confidentiality agreements and reliance letters, supporting transaction execution from end-to-end followed by post-closing amendments/waivers;
• Managing legal risk and ensure transactions comply with internal policy and market standards;
• Developing and maintaining internal precedents and know-how resources on leveraged finance, and provide training and guidance to non-legal teams on leveraged finance documentation and legal risk;
• Supporting the debt finance legal team on other types of debt financing, such as fund/capital call finance, real estate finance, project finance, private and structured credit products, distribution of credit risk and secondary loan trading;
• Providing English law advice on wholesale banking matters in the UK, to the head office and to international branches;
• Analysing and advising on all relevant UK regulatory matters, ensuring that contracts remain in compliance with applicable law and regulation and keeping abreast of legislative changes that may affect the bank;
• Supporting the legal team as required on trade finance matters and certain global markets matters; and
• Working closely and directly with business units and other legal team members, and appointing and managing outside counsel.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Qualified solicitor in England and Wales; and
• Would suit candidates with more than 10 years post-qualification experience (PQE) working in a top international law firm; additionally, prior experience in an in-house legal department is also helpful but not a prerequisite.

SKILLS/COMPETENCIES/EXPERIENCE/PROFICIENCIES REQUIRED:

• Extensive experience of leveraged finance is required; prior experience of all areas is not required but the candidate must be enthusiastic and keen to learn;
• Strong understanding of LMA documentation, intercreditor arrangements, security structuring and cross-border financing;
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, high commercial awareness and ability to distil complex legal concepts into clear, actionable advice;
• Robust and thorough approach to drafting and reviewing of documentation;
• Strong ability to work effectively in multicultural, geographically dispersed, virtual teams;
• Ability to work well and efficiently under pressure - working outside core office hours (which may occasionally include weekends) in order to meet deadlines, if required;
• Ability to manage a high workload consisting of a wide range of multiple competing tasks;
• Good understanding of the regulatory aspects of banking and finance; and
• Spanish language skills are helpful but not essential.

ADDITIONAL ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES:

• A responsible, professional and reliable team player;
• An understanding of the necessity to provide a high standard of customer service to clients; and
• A desire to work as a part of a team to take on new challenges and help develop new business areas for CIB.

Skills:

Capital Markets, Customer Targeting, Empathy, Ethics, Financial Contracts, Financial Leverage, Innovation, Legal Practices, Proactive Thinking