John May

John M. May, Managing Director splits his time between the firm’s St. Louis and Chicago offices. He is responsible for developing and growing the firm’s Renewable Energy Practice.  He is a seasoned project finance investment banker who has financed over $1 billion in loan and par values for over 100 clients in his 15-year banking career.  In the past three years, he has become one of the top renewable energy bankers in the country, having developed a national practice in renewable energy finance focusing on biofuels, biomass and coal gasification.  He is financial advisor to numerous renewable companies and has placed senior and subordinated debt financing for new projects, expansions and acquisitions.  He has also been placement agent to companies raising debt through the issuance of tax-exempt and taxable bonds in the ethanol industry.  He was responsible for developing one of the first tax-exempt subordinated bond structures sold to major U.S institutional investors to fund ethanol projects.  He has also pioneered the use of State guarantees of debt for biofuels financings.  He secured a $15 million full faith and credit guarantee from the State of Illinois for a biodiesel project.  He also underwrote one the country’s first tax-exempt bond issues to fund a landfill gas-to-electricity project.  One of his current interests is in the development of tax-exempt solid waste bonds for use in funding gas to liquids projects.  He has been involved in financing renewable projects in ten Midwestern and Western states. John’s renewable energy clients include public companies such as Pacific Ethanol, GTL Resources PLC, Rentech, Ethanex Energy and Four Rivers Bioenergy; and private companies such as Biofuels Company of America (in which Bunge of North America was an investor), Whitewater Ethanol and Nexsun Energy.   He is a frequent speaker at national conferences, and has given recent presentations on financing cellulosic ethanol and the history of lending to biofuels by the commercial bank and bond markets.  He presented at the Platts Cellulosic Ethanol Conference held in Chicago in November 2007, and at the Future Fuels Conference in Washington, D.C. in December 2007.  He has provided counsel on financing options and the credit markets to such government and association industry participants as the Staff of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, U.S. Department of Energy/NREL, Missouri and Illinois Corn Growers Associations and the Illinois Finance Authority.  He has been featured in recent articles and web seminars on biofuels finance authored or sponsored by Biofuels Journal and published on Grainnet.com.Prior to beginning his investment banking career, John practiced law at two national firms in Kansas City and Dallas.  He received his J.D. and M.B.A. (with Concentration in Finance) degrees from the University of Kansas, and his B.A. With Honors Cum Laude from Brown University.