Walter H. Hinton, II

Walter Hinton is Counsel in the Corporate Section of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP, where he is a member of the Firm’s Air Transport Industry Group.

Mr. Hinton maintains a corporate and commercial practice including aviation, equipment leasing, commercial contracting, corporate acquisitions and dispositions, debt finance, maritime and intellectual property transactions. He regularly handles matters such as financings, leases, sales and dispositions of aircraft as well as structuring aircraft ownership and operating arrangements for corporate operators.

Mr. Hinton serves corporate aircraft operators entering into tax-deferred like-kind exchanges, dry and wet aircraft leases, aircraft management agreements and interchange agreements. He frequently works with banks and lessors financing aviation assets, as well as aircraft managers and fractional-ownership program managers.

He also has advised lenders, lessors, borrowers and lessees in financing transactions for a wide variety of capital equipment and plant assets. Mr. Hinton also assists manufacturers and distributors in negotiating business acquisitions and dispositions, commercial contracts and technology licenses. His experience includes a practice in maritime transactions including the sale, chartering and financing of vessels and yachts.

Representative Transactions

• Domestic airline engaging in purchases, leases and debt financings of regional aircraft for its fleet
• Offshore investor acquiring multiple wide-body aircraft for reconfiguration and remarketing
• Syndicated investor-lessors in the sale of wide-body aircraft to a trunk airline lessee under a high-yield bond financing from lessors
• Institutional investor acquiring a wide-body aircraft leased to a major airline
• Startup company acquiring narrow-body commercial aircraft through operating leases from a major lessor and subleasing them to a federal government agency
• Automotive manufacturer entering into a synthetic lease of an office campus
• Regional hospital in a bond financing of a medical campus expansion and finance leases of hospital equipment
• Bank lessor pursuing remedies against a defaulting lessee of process equipment
• North American investor acquiring certificated aircraft repair stations with secured debt financing
• Three aerospace companies entering into a joint venture for an engine maintenance, repair and overhaul facility

Mr. Hinton received his A.B. degree in English from Dartmouth College. He also attended the University of Strasbourg, France. He earned his J.D. degree from Northwestern University School of Law.

Mr. Hinton is a member of the Connecticut, Georgia, New York and South Carolina Bars. He also is a member of the American Bar Association, its Business Law Section and its Aviation Law Forum; the New York City Bar Association; the Maritime Law Association of the United States; and the National Business Aviation Association. He served on the South Carolina Law Institute Editorial Committees for Articles 2A, 8 and 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code on personal-property leasing and security.

Mr. Hinton is fluent in French and conversational in German and Italian.