Mergers & Acquisitions
You hire M&A lawyers to facilitate deals, not hold them up. Our team carefully assesses risk, and structures and negotiates your transactions to position you best. However, we don’t give you unnecessary, protracted updates on minor details. We maximize time by ensuring clear communication, lean staffing, and a keen understanding of your long-term objectives.
We have one of the country’s most experienced groups of M&A attorneys, advising businesses every day on how to access the market to achieve their strategic and liquidity objectives. With over 125 M&A attorneys throughout our firm, we have the depth to assemble a complete team of lawyers that can react quickly to solve the most critical challenges facing your business today. We serve clients ranging from Fortune 500 corporations, closely held companies, private equity sponsors, investment banks and special committees.
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 15 “M&A Advisers in Announced Deals with a Value of $100 Million or More,” based on number of deals in 2021.
- Ranked in the top 10, based on number of deals, in the M&A category “US Middle Market Announced Deals,” in 2021. (FactSet)
- Ranked #2 among U.S. law firms representing financial advisors in M&A activity for 2021. (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 ADS-TEC Energy, a global leader in battery buffered ultrafast charging technology, and its majority shareholders in its $580 million business combination with European Sustainable Growth Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company.
- Represented Asahi Intecc Co. Ltd., a Japan-based medical equipment manufacturer, in its $30 million acquisition of Pathways Medical Corporation, a U.S.-based company that possesses unique technology related to electrical wiring which can be formed on the surface of guide wires, etc., from Cygnus Investment Corporation and a number of individual shareholders.
- Represented Mississippi-based BancorpSouth Bank in its $2.7 billion merger with Texas-based Cadence Bancorporation, the parent company of Cadence Bank, N.A. At the time of announcement, it was the second-largest Texas bank deal in history.
- Represented Boral Industries Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Boral Limited, an international building products and construction materials group, in the $2.15 billion sale of its North American building products businesses to Westlake Chemical Corporation, a global manufacturer and supplier of materials.
- Represented Builders FirstSource, a leading manufacturer and distributor of building products to professional homebuilders, in its $450 million acquisition of WTS Paradigm LLC, a software solutions and services provider for the building products industry.
- Represented Caelum Biosciences, founded by pharmaceutical company Fortress Biotech, in its $150 million sale of all remaining equity, plus additional payments up to $350 million based on regulatory and commercial milestones, to AstraZeneca through Alexion Pharmaceuticals, the arm of AstraZeneca focused on rare diseases. This deal follows a previous minority investment by Alexion that included an exclusive option to purchase the remainder of Caelum.
- Represented Citi and Credit Suisse, as financial advisors to Hormel Foods Corporation, in its $3.35 billion acquisition of Planters® from the Kraft Heinz Company.
- Represented Texas-based Cobra Legal Solutions in its strategic investment from private equity firm Blue Sage Capital.
- Represented Cox Automotive Inc. in its acquisition of Fyusion, a computer vision company and leader in immersive vehicle imaging solutions for automotive and other industries.
- Represented Credit Suisse, financial advisor to Altria, a US-based tobacco, food and brewery company, on the $1.2 billion sale of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates to private equity firm Sycamore Partners Management LP.
- Represented FirstCash Inc., the leading international operator of over 2,800 retail pawn stores in the U.S. and Latin America, in its $1.17 billion acquisition of American First Finance Inc., a technology-driven virtual lease-to-own and retail finance provider focused on underserved, non-prime customers.
- Represented Fifth Third Bancorp, a diversified financial services company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, in its acquisition of Provide, a fintech company providing a digital platform for healthcare practices.
- 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 $280 million acquisition of Americraft Carton 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 Hilton Grand Vacations in its $1.4 billion acquisition of Diamond Resorts International, Inc. from funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc., funds managed by affiliates of Reverence Capital Partners, and other Diamond stockholders.
- Counsel to Houlihan Lokey, financial advisor to special purpose acquisition company Reinvent Technology Partners Y in its proposed acquisition of Aurora Innovation, a self-driving technology company.
- Represented PC Advisors LLC in its acquisition, through its subsidiary McMahon Contracting and Construction LLC, of the assets and business of McMahon Contracting L.P., a construction business engaged in concrete paving, installing underground utilities and constructing concrete structures, roads and bridge segments, and the personal goodwill of the owner of McMahon Contracting, L.P.
- Represented global manufacturer RENK AG in its $400 million acquisition of Combat Propulsion Systems, a manufacturer of military engines and transmission, and related businesses from L3Harris Technologies.
- Represented Select Interior Concepts Inc., a premier distributor of interior building products, in its $411 million sale to an affiliate of global private equity firm Sun Capital Partners Inc.
- Represented Tenet Healthcare Corporation, a publicly-traded healthcare services company, in its $1.1 billion sale of 5 hospitals in the Miami-Dade and Southern Broward county area to Steward Health Care System LLC.
- Represented Truist Securities, financial advisor to Griffin-American Healthcare REIT IV Inc. in its $4.2 billion proposed merger with Griffin-American Healthcare REIT III Inc.
- Represented Wells Fargo Securities, financial advisor to Independence Energy, an oil and gas business managed by New York-based investment firm KKR’s Energy Real Assets team, in its $5.7 billion business combination with Texas-based Contango Oil & Gas.
- Represented White Cap Supply Holdings, a portfolio company of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, with its acquisitions of National Concrete Accessories Canada Inc., substantially all of the assets of Tri-Supply & Equipment Inc., Diamond Tool & Fasteners Inc., and the rebar operations of The Cook & Boardman Group.
Highlights
Said Differently Receives Platform Investment from Falfurrias Capital Partners
Alston & Bird client Said Differently, a global marketing agency, has received a platform investment by Falfurrias Capital Partners, a Charlotte-based private equity investment firm. The deal is the fourth investment from Falfurrias’ oversubscribed, $850 million Fund V and closed on August 19, 2022.
FLEETCOR Technologies Acquires Accrualify Inc.
Alston & Bird client FLEETCOR Technologies Inc., an NYSE-listed leading global business payments company, has acquired Accrualify Inc., an accounts payable automation software company.
ZenFi Networks to Be Acquired by BAI Communications
Alston & Bird client ZenFi Networks, an innovative digital infrastructure company, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by BAI Communications, a global shared communications infrastructure provider.
Larkspur Health Acquisition Corp. to Merge with ZyVersa Therapeutics
Alston & Bird client Larkspur Health Acquisition Corp., a blank-check special purpose acquisition company, has announced a definitive agreement to merge with ZyVersa Therapeutics Inc., a clinical stage specialty biopharmaceutical company.
James Sullivan | The Art of the Multijurisdictional Transaction
James Sullivan, transactions partner, shares insights on structuring cross-border deals, an area with a decade of steady growth.
Mergers & Acquisitions