Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Introduction
This post is part of my weekly “Ask the Attorney” series which I am writing for VentureBeat (one of the most popular websites for entrepreneurs). As the VentureBeat Editor notes on the site: “Ask the Attorney is a new VentureBeat feature allowing start-up owners to get answers to their legal questions.”
I have two goals here: (i) to encourage entrepreneurs to ask law-related questions regardless of how basic they may be; and (ii) to provide helpful responses in plain English (as opposed to legalese). Please give me your feedback in the comments section. Many thanks, Scott
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Tags: acquiring a company, assets, distressed business, due diligence, equity, exclusivity agreement, fraudulent conveyance, investment bankers, letter of intent, LOI, no shop
Posted in Ask the Attorney, M&A Issues | View Comments
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
As I have previously noted, I was a corporate attorney for nearly eight years at two major law firms in New York City; and the majority of my work there was spent negotiating and documenting large mergers and acquisitions for multinational corporations, financial institutions and private equity firms. When I moved out here to California in 2005 and started focusing on representing entrepreneurs (which meant predominately middle-market M&A transactions), I was surprised to see how unsophisticated a lot of the players are here; in short, it’s a different environment than New York. Nevertheless, I love living in California, and I am trying to provide to entrepreneurs (via these blog posts) some legal tips and lessons I learned at the big firms in New York City. Below are ten tips for entrepreneurs who are contemplating acquiring a private company. (more…)
Tags: acquisition agreement, basket, cap, ceiling, corporate attorney, due diligence, earn-out, entrepreneurs, escrow, Hart Scott, letter of intent, LOI, M&A, MAC, material adverse change, no shop, successor liability
Posted in Dealmaking Generally, M&A Issues | View Comments