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.
Languages
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 25 “M&A Advisers in Announced Deals with a Value of $100 Million or More,” based on number of deals in 2019. (The Deal)
- Ranked in the top 20, based on the number of deals, in the M&A category “US Announced Deals” for 2019. (Factset)
- Ranked #4 among U.S. law firms representing financial advisors in M&A activity for 2019. (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 AGC Networks Limited, a global IT solutions provider, in its $118.7 million acquisition of Black Box Corporation.
- Represented American Proteins in the sale of its poultry rendering and blending assets to Tyson Foods for $850 million.
- Represented CatchMark Timber Trust in its acquisition of 1.1 million acres of Crown Pine East Texas timberlands for approximately $1.39 billion in a joint venture with a consortium of institutional investors.
- Represented CommScope Holding Company Inc. in its $3 billion purchase of TE Connectivity’s Broadband Network Solutions unit, consisting of telecom, enterprise, and wireless businesses.
- Represented Cox Automotive in its acquisition of Clutch Technologies, a vehicle subscription business.
- Represented Credit Suisse, the financial advisor to Pinnacle Foods, in Conagra Brands’ acquisition of Pinnacle Foods in a cash and stock merger valued at $10.9 billion.
- Represented First Cash Financial Services Inc., an international operator of retail pawn shops, in its merger of equals with Cash America International Inc. with a combined enterprise value of approximately $3 billion. The transaction creates the largest combined retail pawn store operator in the U.S. and Latin America, with total annual revenue of approximately $1.8 billion and more than 2,000 locations across four countries.
- Represented FLEETCOR Technologies Inc., a leading global provider of fuel cards and workforce payment products to businesses, in its $3.45 billion acquisition of Comdata Inc.
- Represented Grain Management LLC, a leading private equity firm focused on the communications sector, in its acquisition of Great Plains Communications, the largest privately owned telecommunications provider in Nebraska.
- 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 LinQuest Corporation, a federal government contractor and leading provider of space systems technology solutions to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities, in the sale of a controlling interest to Madison Dearborn Partners and CoVant Management.
- Represented Osaka, Japan-based Nippon Paint in its acquisition of Dunn-Edwards Corporation, one of the U.S.’s largest independent manufacturers of architectural, industrial, and high-performance paints.
- Represented STS Aviation Group, a global aviation solutions company, in the sale of a majority interest in the company to Greenbriar Equity Group, L.P.
- Represented Synovus Financial Corporation in its $2.9 billion acquisition of Florida-based FCB Financial Holdings Inc. in the second-largest bank deal in 2018 at time of announcement, based on value.
- Represented Turner Broadcasting, a Time Warner subsidiary and owner of CNN, Turner Sports, TNT, and Cartoon Network, in its sale of the broadcast assets of WPCH-TV to Meredith Corp. WPCH-TV is the former “Superstation WTBS” founded by Ted Turner.
- Represented Uniti Fiber Holdings in its $54 million acquisition of Information Transport Solutions, a technology solutions provider, primarily for educational institutions.
- Represented the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of ZAIS Group Holdings, an investment advisory and asset management firm, in a going-private transaction.
Highlights
Alston & Bird Recognized as a Top 25 Law Firm for Private Equity Deals
Alston & Bird has been named among the top 25 law firms advising on middle-market private equity M&A deals in newly published league tables by The Deal.
Clearview Capital Acquires Freedom Detox, Purchase Green, and Ambient Weather
Alston & Bird client Clearview Capital LP has announced the completion of three acquisitions by portfolio companies Pyramid Healthcare Inc., Controlled Products LLC, and Nielsen-Kellerman Inc.
Rosemarie Thurston Named a Top Woman in Real Estate by Connect Media
Rosemarie Thurston, partner and leader of Alston & Bird’s REITs and Real Estate Funds Team, has been named to Connect Media’s 2019 “Women in Real Estate” for the Atlanta/Southeast region, an elite group of commercial real estate leaders.
SmartFinancial Announces Acquisition of Progressive Financial Group
Alston & Bird Named a Top U.S. Corporate Law Firm by Forbes; “Most Recommended” in Antitrust
Alston & Bird has been named to the inaugural Forbes survey of “America’s Top Trusted Corporate Law Firms” as one of the country’s “most recommended” firms in antitrust and competition law.
BancorpSouth Bank to Acquire Texas First Bancshares
Alston & Bird client BancorpSouth Bank has signed a definitive agreement to merge with Texas First Bancshares, Inc., the parent company of Texas First State Bank.
Alston & Bird’s Duncan Douglass, Mary Gill, and Nola Vanhoy Honored as “Georgia Trailblazers” by the Daily Report
Alston & Bird’s Duncan Douglass, Mary Gill, and Nola Vanhoy have been honored as “Georgia Trailblazers” by the Daily Report in its inaugural list of individuals it describes as true agents of change “who made significant marks on the practice, policy, and technological advancement of their practice.”
Four Alston & Bird Attorneys Named to The National Black Lawyers’ “Top 40 Under 40”
Four Alston & Bird attorneys – James Alexander, Marcus Sandifer, Elliot Watts, and Jamila Williams – have been named by The National Black Lawyers to its 2019 class of the “Top 40 Under 40.”
Charles Cox Recognized Among Los Angeles’ Top Litigators
Charles Cox, partner in Alston & Bird’s Securities Litigation Group, has been named a top litigator in Los Angeles.
The First Bancshares to Acquire First Florida Bancorp for $85 Million
Alston & Bird client The First Bancshares, Inc., holding company for The First, A National Banking Association, announced that it plans to acquire First Florida Bancorp, Inc., the parent company of First Florida Bank, for approximately $85 million.
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.