Kenneth Furry, TBLS General Counsel – Mr. Furry has more than 25 years of experience as a legal practitioner and advisor for established companies and business start-ups. His most recent position was Division Counsel at Bluefield Holdings Inc., an eco-asset development firm. For Bluefield, Mr. Furry handled the development of intellectual property, real estate and other assets designed to combine and integrate large-scale rain harvesting with environmental credit banking. Mr. Furry conceptualized, negotiated and drafted environmental derivative credits, eco-credit purchase & sale agreements, disclosure documents, bid packages, real estate leases and vendor and other agreements. He also handled dispute resolutions and supported regulatory and lobbying efforts. An important part of his work was the vigorous protection of intellectual property rights.
Prior to Bluefield, Mr. Furry served for eight years in outside counsel and in-house roles for a strategic and turnaround management consulting firm located in the New York City area. As a member of the business consulting team, Mr. Furry provided legal advice to the firm’s President and consulting staff at various client locations in the U.S. and Canada. Among other things, Mr. Furry dealt with consulting clients on transactional, valuation and other matters and provided a legal bridge with executives, senior asset-based lenders, subordinated lenders, trade creditors and other stakeholders and their various counsel. His work included extensive negotiation and drafting of consulting agreements designed for clarity and risk-reduction in the firm’s core business. He also drafted consulting evaluation reports, turnaround steps, term sheets, valuation analyses and other documents for delivery to boards of directors, executive management and senior lenders. Mr. Furry provided counsel for secured and unsecured loans extended to enhance the turnaround and growth prospects of middle-market clients, and acted as counsel for loan workout transactions and restructurings.
Mr. Furry was with the Manhattan law firm of Jenkens & Gilchrist Parker Chapin LLP, conducting a orporate and commercial practice centered on the representation of middle-market companies, closely held businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups. His practice encompassed mergers and acquisitions (sales and purchases of assets, including resolution of regulatory matters and supervision of labor union issues); troubled company restructurings (forestalling insolvency/bankruptcy proceedings and working out defaulted secured/unsecured loans and other creditor positions); and business formations (start-up of LLC/corporation including initial angel rounds of financing, and the negotiation and formation of an international dotcom joint venture). His day-to-day coverage included the negotiation and drafting of commercial contracts (such as finder’s and financial advisory agreements and equipment leases), loan transactions, exit planning advice and documentation, and the resolution of employment and ownership disputes.
Mr. Furry began his career with Reid and Riege, P.C., a mid-sized firm in Hartford, Connecticut, where his work included corporate, commercial lending, securities, bank regulatory, bank acquisition and real estate transactions as well as initial public offerings of debt and equity securities. While in Hartford, he served as outside counsel to American Express Bank Ltd. for corporate governance matters. Mr. Furry relocated to New York City when he was recruited to serve as Vice President and Counsel at an NYSE-listed financial institution. He stayed for six years, and was the primary legal advisor for real estate lending, leasing and other business units. He also acted as corporate and securities counsel (handling public disclosure documents such as annual reports, proxy statements, forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K; original NYSE listings of stock; annual and special stockholders’ meetings; and a proxy contest); regulatory counsel (capital compliance issues, affiliate transactions, etc.); investment counsel (purchases, sales and custodianship of investment products and sales of restricted securities); and as advisor to directors and executive officers for insider-trading and code of ethics compliance.
Ken received his B.S., M.B.A. and Juris Doctor degrees from Cornell University.