Gueter Aurelien

Partner
Gueter Aurelien

Gueter Aurelien’s practice focuses on a broad range of corporate law matters, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, commercial financing, equity investments, securities offerings, commercial contracts, and general business transactions. Gueter advises start-up, emerging growth, and later-stage companies in a variety of industries; financial institutions; specialty lenders; banks; investors; entrepreneurs; and nonprofit organizations. She also regularly represents community development entities and other parties in connection with Federal New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) financing transactions.

In addition to her general corporate practice, Gueter has experience with public finance. She represents municipalities and conduit issuers and borrowers and routinely serves as bond counsel and borrower’s counsel. She has experience advising on general obligation bonds and revenue bonds; competitive, negotiated, and public offerings; private placements; and sophisticated financing, refinancing, and refunding arrangements using tax-exempt and taxable bonds.

Experience

Representative Matters

  • Represented a nonprofit Qualified Active Low-Income Community Business in its financing of a $33,000,000 outpatient medical center and a new office and research space, designed to expand healthcare services to the residents of Ward 8 in Washington, DC
  • Represented a private investment company in its acquisition of a gas utility and construction materials company in a stock purchase transaction
  • Served as Maryland counsel to a pharmaceutical company in debt and equity financing transactions
  • Represented a real estate investment trust (REIT) in a $65 million follow-on underwritten public offering of common stock
  • Represented a Maryland manufacturer in a sale by reverse triangular merger to a private equity firm
  • Represented a community development entity in a financing transaction of $13.5 million in federal NMTC Program funds and $6.4 million in Florida NMTC Program funds to a qualified low-income community business to acquire and develop a social service facility located in Miami, Florida
  • Represented a project management and consulting firm in its acquisition of an operations management services company in a transaction involving a rollover equity investment and debt financing
  • Represented clients, including Maryland municipalities and conduit borrowers, in a variety of complex refinancing transactions, including tax-exempt financing and current refundings
  • Represented various entities, including banks and other financial institutions, small businesses, corporate borrowers, and nonprofit entities, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in navigating and participating in the multiple programs established by the U.S. Federal Reserve and U.S. Department of the Treasury under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, including applying for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and assisting a financial institution with the deployment of approximately $80 million to business under the Main Street Lending Program
  • Represented one of the largest regional gasoline distributors and served as lead financing counsel in connection with a debt restructuring transaction of approximately $300 million
  • Represented an investment company with a financing transaction involving senior and mezzanine lending facilities to raise approximately $30 million for the acquisition of a regional maintenance company
  • Represented a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in connection with its participation in the U.S. Treasury’s Emergency Capital Investment Program (ECIP) and assisted the CDFI with its funding programs under ECIP to provide financing to small businesses in low- and middle-income communities with a lack of access to capital

Insights

Credentials
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Education

  • J.D. magna cum laude University of Miami School of Law 2013
    • Member, University of Miami Psychology, Public Policy & Law Journal
    • Representative, University of Miami School of Law Immigration Clinic
    • Co-author, Amicus brief filed before the Florida Supreme Court
    • Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholar, Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA)
    • Microsoft 1L Scholar, Legal Council on Legal Diversity
    • CALI Excellence for the Future Award, Business Associations and Caribbean Law
  • M.A. Forensic Accounting Florida Atlantic University 2010
    • Phi Kappa Phi
  • B.A. Columbia University 1999
    • Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges

Bar Admissions

  • Maryland
  • District of Columbia

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Supreme Court

Professional Memberships and Activities

  • Instructor, Business Law, Entrepreneurship, and Management Programs, Johns Hopkins University
  • Former contributor, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Recognition
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  • Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), Rising Star, 2022
  • The Daily RecordGeneration J.D., 2022
  • Super Lawyers, Rising Star, Maryland, 2021 – 2023
  • The Best Lawyers in America, Ones to Watch, 2021 – 2024     
  • The National Black Lawyers, Top 40 Under 40

Community
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Volunteerism

  • Former member, Board, Boys Hope Girls Hope of Baltimore – a nonprofit that helps academically capable and motivated children in need meet their full potential by providing value-centered, family-like homes, opportunities, and education through college