Practice Strengths

Through each of our firm's 11 offices, our Private Capital team represents venture capital and private equity funds, as well as portfolio companies and high growth oriented businesses. We help maneuver our investment fund clients through the legal realities of their capital raising, investment and allocation activities. We guide them through multiple rounds of investments and portfolio acquisitions, and provide counsel for exit strategies, including recapitalizations, IPOs and private sales.

Our Private Capital team also addresses the legal needs of portfolio and middle market growth companies. We help clients develop and execute their growth strategies. In this capacity, we serve as acquisition counsel, represent companies in strategic partnerships and assist in management structures and incentive compensation programs, all with a keen eye to liquidity targets.

Private Equity
The Private Capital team represents our private equity fund clients in all aspects of portfolio company investments and acquisitions. This legal counsel includes structuring and negotiating acquisitions and the related financings, and addressing industry issues, management agreements and compensation packages. We bring together an experienced team, careful execution and a solutions approach to our clients and their investment transactions. We advise our private equity clients on achieving liquidity goals from the initial investment to the exit event, with particular attention to corporate structure, asset value preservation and tax efficiencies. We are listed as a top private equity firm in Florida in the 2012 edition of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business.

Venture Capital
The size and experience of our Private Capital team was invaluable during the past decade of serving venture capital funds with a steady stream of fast-paced venture capital investments. We have represented early stage, mid-stage and sector specific funds in investments across the United States and internationally. 

In the market environment that followed the venture capital activity of the late 1990s and into 2000, we assisted our venture capital clients in managing the issues of lower market valuations, scarce capital and slower growth.

Today, we are helping venture capital funds capitalize on new markets and technologies to identify orphaned technologies and revenue realization in existing portfolio businesses.

Private Equity and Venture Capital Experience

• Represented the management team of The Hillman Group with regard to equity rollovers and participation in a $511 million private equity buy-out.
• Represented the management team of Transdigm Inc. in connection with equity participation, rollover and deferred compensation arrangements in a  $1.3 billion sale to one of the country's largest New York-based equity funds.
• Counseled Morgenthaler Ventures in the acquisition of MPI International, a subsequent add-on acquisition and the ultimate disposition of the combined group to First Atlantic Capital Ltd., a New York-based private equity firm.
• Advised Blue Point Capital Partners, a Cleveland-based private equity firm, in acquiring CSM Industries, a world leader in the production of powders and fabricated products made from molybdenum and tungsten. We helped CSM expand its business through several acquisitions and then facilitated CSM's profitable sale to a German strategic buyer.  
• Counseled the management of Borden Chemical in its $650 million sale by KKR to Apollo Management, advising them on replacement and/or termination of equity participation and other executive compensation arrangements
• Handled the $578 million cash sale of Interval International, a portfolio company of a major Chicago based private equity investment firm and a leading global company in the timeshare industry, to USA Interactive.

Fund Formation
Our Private Capital team represents funds of various sizes and structures in the formation and capital raising process. Our clients include venture capital and private equity funds, real estate and other sector specific equity funds, mezzanine funds, funds-of-funds and hedge funds. Our counsel includes advising on structure and terms, relationships with fund principals, securities compliance, tax and pension fund-related advice and Investment Company Act and Investment Advisers Act compliance. Clients include well-established private equity funds, first-time equity funds raising capital from $15 million to more than $100 million, REITs and hedge funds.

Company Counsel
Our Private Capital team represents early stage and middle market companies in their plans for growth and raising capital. Our client-by-client approach means we combine BakerHostetler's decades of experience in the middle market with the goals and needs of each client. Our counsel includes capital formation, securities law compliance, debt finance, employment and benefits issues, tax structures, intellectual property, asset protection and multiple other matters. Our clients include technology enterprises, traditional manufacturing and distribution businesses, and retail, financial, service, software, media and entertainment sector businesses.

Special Activities
BakerHostetler's commitment to the private capital community extends beyond that of legal advisor to participant.

• Hosting an annual program for Midwest-based regional private equity and buyout funds.
• Sponsoring a university affiliated, early-stage technology incubator.
• Participating in a corporate community-supported $33 million early-stage technology fund based in Columbus, Ohio.
• Partnering investor in Cleveland-based middle-market opportunity fund.
• Sponsoring a Pittsburgh venture investing symposium.

BakerHostetler supports such initiatives in major markets across the country.