Mergers & Acquisitions

Experience

Alston & Bird M&A attorneys have extensive experience advising clients engaged in a full range of domestic and cross-border public and private transactions, including acquisitions and divestitures, mergers, leveraged buyouts, going-private transactions, strategic alliances and joint ventures. We have developed significant industry-specific knowledge in many cutting-edge industries, including:

• biotechnology;
• consumer products and services;
• energy;
• financial services;
• health care;
• insurance; and
• technology and telecommunications

Accolades

Our M&A practice is consistently among the most active in the nation.

• Top 25 “M&A Advisers in Announced Deals with a Value of $100 Million or More,” based on number of deals in the first half of 2021. (The Deal)
• Ranked in the top 10, based on the number of deals, in the M&A category “US Middle Market Announced Deal” for the first half of 2021. (Factset)
• Ranked #6 among U.S. law firms representing financial advisors in M&A activity for 2020. (Corporate Control Alert)
• Nationally ranked in Tier 1 for Mergers & Acquisitions Law since 2013. (U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms”)

Bringing Value to Our Clients

We operate based on two fundamental principles: first, that a client hires us to be facilitators, not roadblocks; and second, that we are there to protect the value of our client’s deal. We focus on our client’s business and long-term objectives and ascertain the elements of value in the deal for our client. We take a fully integrated approach to assessing the risks that affect value, negotiate to minimize those risks and structure the transaction so that the objectives are accomplished.

• Represented Fifth Third Bancorp in its acquisition of Hammond Hanlon Camp LLC, a premier strategic advisory and investment banking firm focused on hospitals, health systems, and related organizations. 
• Represented Fortress Investment Group and its affiliates as the successful bidder to acquire the assets of The Krystal Company in a 363 sale process. 
• Represented Grain Management LLC, a leading private investment firm that focuses on broadband infrastructure and technology companies, in its acquisition of Conexão Group, one of the largest high speed internet service providers in the northeast and southeast regions of Brazil.
• For more than 10 years, we have represented Graphic Packaging International, a leading provider of paperboard packaging solutions to multinational and other consumer products companies, in more than a dozen M&A transactions, including its acquisition of assets from Delta Natural Kraft Inc.; its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Sierra Pacific Packaging Inc.; several dispositions of non-core businesses; its merger agreement with Altivity Packaging LLC, a paperboard packaging company whose majority interest is held by the private equity group TPG Capital; and its $6 billion combination with the North America consumer packaging business of International Paper Company.
• Represented Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC and its portfolio company AEVEX Aerospace in the acquisition of Geodetics, Inc., a developer and provider of precise positioning navigation and timing, LiDAR mobile mapping, and related products to both U.S. government and commercial customers.
• Represented NCR Corporation in its acquisition of grocery e-commerce leader Freshop Inc. 
• Represented Pamlico Capital in its growth investment in Protera Technologies Inc., a leading provider of public cloud-centric application management and migration services for SAP software, as well as other enterprise IT outsourcing services.
• Represented Ridgemont Equity Partners in its growth investment in Softdocs, an enterprise content management (ECM) software provider for the higher education and K-12 markets.
• Represented Select Interior Concepts Inc., a premier installer and distributor of interior building products, in the $215 million sale of its Residential Design Services segment to Interior Logic Group, a portfolio company of Blackstone.
• Represented Stemline Therapeutics, a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company, in its $677 million sale to the Menarini Group, a privately held Italian pharmaceutical and diagnostics company. 
• Represented Tropical Smoothie Café, a leading franchisor of fast casual cafes, in its sale to Levine Leichtman Capital Partners. 
• Represented Truist Bank in the sale of its institutional 401(k) investment advisory services business to OneDigital Investment Advisors, and in the sale of its institutional 401(k) recordkeeping businesses to Ascensus and Empower Retirement.
• Represented U.S. Bank and its payments subsidiary Elavon in the sale of its Mexico-based payments operations to Banco Santander.