Overview
Climate of change
Today’s M&A environment is more competitive than ever. With more opportunity comes more complexity. From scrutinizing multifaceted, nuanced acquisition opportunities to identifying the best time for an exit, we help you see through the fog of competitive bidders and regulatory obstacles to a clear strategic vision and confident decision making.
The right moves at the right time
At Manatt, you get the deep M&A experience and broad ancillary and regulatory experience of a large national firm with the attention, responsiveness and flexibility of a boutique practice. We customize your deal team to suit the needs of any transaction.
Whatever your situation, you need a commercially minded legal partner who gets your business, your goals and the company-specific sensitivities that will guide your deals to success.
Gaining a profound understanding of your goals, we apply the right combination of business judgment and legal dexterity to help you move fast and make the most of every opportunity. We bring our industry knowledge and regulatory experience to bear on every recommendation we make, focusing positively on solutions. We also consciously avoid over-lawyering—our job is to get the job done, intelligently and efficiently, to keep your business moving forward.
Who we work with
We work with enterprising businesses of all kinds: large multinational corporations, private middle-market companies, private equity funds and individual entrepreneurs. Our industry experience is wide and runs particularly deep in the following areas:
- Financial services, ranging from traditional banking M&A to financial technology and alternative payment industry leaders
- Health care, including representation of payors, providers, and medical technology and pharmaceutical companies
- Entertainment and digital media
- Energy, including alternative energy acquisitions and financing
We also represent large and midsize investment banks as well as boutique financial advisors in a wide range of corporate M&A deals. When our financial advisor clients issue fairness opinions to corporate boards of directors, we serve as their close advisor to make sure their work product can stand up to the intense scrutiny so prevalent in transactions today.
What we do
We handle and advise on mergers and acquisitions at every stage, from strategic planning to final closing. Our services include:
- Domestic and international merger, stock purchase, and asset purchase transactions
- Private equity investments and acquisitions
- Going-private transactions
- Leveraged and management buyouts
- Tender and exchange offers
- Unsolicited offers and takeover defenses
- Special committee representations
- Regulatory liaisons and approvals
- Proxy contests
- Share exchanges
- Opportunity identification and evaluation
- Pre- and post-transaction strategy
Our financial advisors’ practice assists our investment bank and other financial advisor clients with the following:
- Fairness opinions
- Solvency and capital adequacy opinions
- Engagement letters
- Dealer-manager agreements
- Disclosure issues in public company M&A
- M&A litigation
Experience
Representative Matters
Recent experience include Manatt's representation of:
- Bertelsmann and its subsidiary OnCourse Learning in the approximately $121 million sale of OnCourse’s financial services education business to Adtalem Global Education.
- BMG Rights Management (BMG) in several transactions that have aggregated over 1,000,000 copyrights.
- Community Bank in its $903 million sale to CVB Financial Corp.
- CVS Health Corporation in the acquisition of Centene Corporation’s Illinois health plan subsidiary, IlliniCare Health Plan, Inc.
- The owners of CoComelon in its sale to U.K.-based Moonbug Entertainment.
- Digital Brands Group, Inc., a curated collection of luxury lifestyle, digital-first brands, in connection with its $10 million IPO and acquisitions of clothing brands Bailey 44 and Harper & Jones, LLC.
- Eurostar, Inc. (dba Warehouse Shoe Sales or WSS), a Los Angeles-based athletic footwear and clothing company, in its $750 million acquisition by Foot Locker, a national sportswear and footwear retailer.
- Financial Investors Insurance Corporation in its sale of $250 million in bonds.
- Hain Celestial Group (Nasdaq: HAIN), a leading organic and natural products company with operations in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, in the:
- $15 million sale of its Arrowhead Mills and SunSpire brands to Chicago-based Hometown Food Company
- Sale of its Casbah Authentic Grains brand to U.S. Durum Products Limited
- KC Global Media Entertainment in its acquisition of four pan-Asian television networks owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment.
- Mann+Hummel, global manufacturer of air filters and other products in its strategic partnership with Pamlico Air, an American air filter products manufacturer for retail and wholesale applications.
- Mullen Technologies, Inc., in its reverse merger transaction with Net Element, Inc.
- Presidio Bank in its $200 million merger with Heritage Commerce Corp.
- Rsquared Communication in its acquisition by marketing and communications agency Archetype.
- Synergy and 530 Cannabis, two Northern California cannabis companies, in their sale to Hightimes Holding Corp. for $10.2 million and $4.4 million, respectively.
- Triller in its $28 million cash and stock sale to Proxima Media.
Clients
Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA
Blue Shield of CA
CVS Health
Hain Celestial Group
Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.
Mann + Hummel GmbH
Presidio Bank
Related Practices
Bankruptcy
Capital Markets
Corporate and Finance
Employment and Labor
Financial Services Litigation and Enforcement
Private Equity and Buyout
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)
Tax
