Introducing the ITFA Conference Speakers – Geoff Wynne and Paul Coles

With just over two months to go for the ITFA 45th Annual Trade and Forfaiting Conference, the ITFA Board is delighted to announce that Geoff Wynne from Sullivan & Worcester and Paul Coles from HSBC, will be heading one of the sessions in Cape Town, South Africa. This joint session is titled ”The BAFT MRPA reloaded – the revised BAFT – ITFA Master Participation Agreement”.

Geoff Wynne is head of Sullivan & Worcester’s London office and also head of its Trade & Export Finance Group.  He has extensive experience in banking and finance, specifically trade and structured trade and commodity finance, receivable financings, corporate and international finance, asset and project finance, syndicated lending, equipment leasing and workouts and restructurings.

Geoff is one of the leading trade finance lawyers and has advised extensively many of the major trade finance banks, multilateral financers and companies around the world on trade and commodity transactions in virtually every emerging market including CIS, Far East, India, Africa and Latin America.  He has worked on many structured trade transactions covering such diverse commodities as oil, nickel, steel, tobacco, cocoa and coffee.  He has also advised on ownership structures and repos for commodities and receivables financings.

Geoff sits on the editorial boards of a number of publications and is a regular contributor and speaker at conferences.

Paul Coles, Portfolio Management and Distribution, Global Trade and Receivables Finance (GTRF), HSBC Bank plc, is responsible for overseeing the transactional distribution activity that supports HSBC’s GTRF business. His global role focuses on creating greater consistency in the processes, documentation and investor management, along with working with the regional teams on key multi-jurisdiction transactions.

Prior to joining HSBC, Paul was the global coordinator and EMEA head for trade risk distribution at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Paul has also worked in the trade credit distribution team at ABN AMRO, and subsequently at RBS as the trade asset management regional head for the NV business. He started his career 20 years ago at London Forfaiting Company where he held a variety of trade finance roles.

Paul has a BSc in Management Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London and is a member of the Board of ITFA, where he currently chairs the Market Practice Committee.

At this year’s conference, this session will provide you with all you need to know and more about the new English law BAFT MRPA – Geoff Wynne and Paul Coles will explain the revised document, its improvements and differences from its predecessor.  They will take you “behind the scenes” in the thinking behind the changes.

We look forward to welcoming Geoff and Paul in Cape Town!