JOSHUA THOMPSON focuses his practice on complex financings, including acquisition financings and other leveraged lending (including leveraged buyouts, tender offers, and other ongoing private transactions), liability management transactions, structured financings (including securitizations), asset-based lending, second lien financings, and mezzanine investments. He has experience representing debtors, creditors, agents for lender syndicates, management, and investors in complex restructurings, workouts, bankruptcies, and acquisitions of troubled companies. As counsel for direct lenders and other principal investors, private equity sponsors, and lead arrangers, Josh is involved in all aspects of deal structuring, negotiation, and documentation. He also maintains an active practice in structuring and advising finance companies and other private capital debt providers, as well as multi-asset managers, in building debt investment platforms. Josh’s engagements have ranged across a wide array of industries, including automotive, airline, chemical, energy, financial services, gaming, healthcare/life sciences, infrastructure, manufacturing, media, pharmaceutical, retail, satellites, shipping, and telecommunications.
Josh represents a variety of large financial institutions, including private equity firms, hedge funds, banks, and non-bank credit providers. He also regularly advises major global corporate borrowers.
Strong advocacy on behalf of Josh’s clients has earned him acknowledgment in numerous industry publications, including most recent editions of The Legal 500 US, IFLR1000, Chambers Global (2016–2023), and Chambers USA (2015–2023) where clients have noted that he is “a brilliant lawyer and one of the fastest people I’ve ever met in terms of understanding issues.” In Chambers USA 2022 edition, one client notes that Josh “is a well-known name in the market” and is “strong on cross-border matters and emerging issues in the space.” In 2022, Josh was elected as a Fellow to the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers, a group of lawyers, jurists, and academics who recognize and celebrate achievements and innovations in the field of commercial finance law, as well as the ethics of the profession.
Prior to joining Sidley, Josh was the head of the Global Leveraged Finance group, head of Private Capital and a partner in the Finance practice at another global law firm. Josh was also the former general counsel of Jefferies Finance.