Published: March 5th, 2021
The San Francisco-based partner discusses the appeal of SPACs for technology companies and the continued prominence of Silicon Valley as a tech center.
There’s been a “revolution in how the market and technology companies view SPACs,” said John Olson, a partner at Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian LLP in San Francisco, on this week’s Drinks With The Deal Podcast. Combining with a special purpose acquisition company has made going public a real option for companies that probably would have been unable to complete an IPO, Olson said.
Investment banks and accounting firms have traditionally shied away from doing IPO work for companies with significant growth potential but not current revenue, but going public via a de-SPAC merger is an option for such entities, especially in sectors such as electric mobility and nascent markets such as telemedicine, Olson said. He nonetheless thinks the current level of SPAC activity is unsust
Published: February 19th, 2021
Haas, the co-head of M&A at Hunton Andrews Kurth, discusses what he learned from working for Travis Laster, the state of Delaware law on officer liability, MAE clauses and ordinary course covenants and why he enjoys teaching M&A at the University of Richmond.
As a first-year associate in 2005, Steven Haas got a call from J. Travis Laster. Haas had been a student in a course Laster taught on Delaware takeover litigation at the University of Virginia School of Law the previous year, and Laster wanted to know if Haas would join him as an associate at a firm he and Kevin Abrams were launching in Wilmington.
Published: January 7th, 2021
The vice chair and head of M&A discusses building the firm s biotech practice, helping Covid-19 vaccine developer Moderna grow over the years and recent transformational deals in the latest episode of the podcast.
Stuart Cable and his colleagues at Goodwin Procter LLP in Boston saw the biotechnology sector emerging across the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass., about 15 years ago, and they set out to build a law firm that could serve it. That required developing a team of highly specialized lawyers who could work on issues faced by biotech companies ranging in size from startups to multibillion-dollar public companies, Cable says in this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast.
Published: December 18th, 2020
Hosler, who heads Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner s corporate and finance transactions group, talks about her experiences as a Latina M&A lawyer and her desire to help create a more diverse workplace on the latest Drinks With The Deal podcast.
Stephanie Hosler long resisted joining senior management at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, where she had built a successful career as a St. Louis-based M&A partner, she says in this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast. Her reluctance stemmed from her enjoyment of her practice as well as from a fear that such a role “would create a target on my back” and make her “open to more criticism.” As a Latina, Hosler says, “I’m a lawyer of color, and as a lawyer of color, I did not want to open myself up to that.”
Published: December 14th, 2020
Davis Polk s Daniel Brass discusses the challenges of cross-border dealmaking and lessons he learned when he started practicing in New York after starting his career at Slaughter and May in London.
Cross-cultural translation is a major part of a lawyer’s job in international deals, says Daniel Brass, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast. “You can be struck in negotiations in a cross-border deal for far, far longer than in a domestic deal purely by dint of the fact that people are not understanding each other,” he says. “It’s learning those cultural nuances and being able to explain them to the client that helps you drive a deal.”