Business Growth Strategies

Kegler Brown represented a publicly traded global medical technology company in its acquisition of an early-stage medical technology business in July 2012.

In December 2011, the attorneys at Kegler Brown represented a leading alternative energy provider based in the United States in its cross-border, stock swap merger with a complementary alternative energy provider based in Europe.

In November 2010, Kegler Brown represented an Ohio-based graphic design company in its strategic growth acquisition of a North Carolina-based provider of pre-press services, data management services, website design and development services, and color and retouching services, in connection with furniture sales.

Our firm acted as counsel to the owner of a large industrial park in a series of unique transactions that created one of the first-ever non-railroad-owned intermodal facilities in the country, bringing together a mainline railroad, a national trucking carrier and the owner of the intermodal park. In a further attempt to increase rail traffic to the intermodal facility, our client entered into an agreement with the railroad to help finance the construction of a railroad turn-out 60 miles from the facility, which would allow unit trains that normally move north-south to move east-west to the client’s facility. Both projects involved the negotiation of novel agreements between the parties, as well as the attainment of state grants and low-interest loans to fund the projects. Kegler Brown was integral to the creation of the business strategy, as well as the many transactional documents required to complete the project.

Kegler Brown acted as counsel to a privately owned industrial park to acquire adjoining land from the U.S. Army through a federal exchange program in which the private party obligates itself to construct a facility at another government-owned facility and then exchanges the new facility for the property it actually desired to acquire, namely the adjoining U.S. Army-owned land. Our firm was integral to the negotiations, including navigating through the maze of government requirements for the exchange that included approval of Congress.

The intellectual property lawyers at Kegler Brown serve as investor-side deal counsel for a Columbus-based technology incubator and accelerator on its ongoing seed investments in IP-heavy start-up companies, including a special focus on IP diligence.

Kegler Brown's intellectual property lawyers serve as strategic IP counsel for an Ohio-based growth company specializing in the production and processing of high-value chemicals derived from lake algae and other waste products.

Kegler Brown has served as counsel to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, which is consistently recognized as one of the country’s best dessert boutiques, for many years. Early in 2016, as part of our firm’s continuing role as a strategic business partner to the company, our lawyers advised the company’s owners throughout a series of capital infusion transactions, including multiple sales of convertible notes and equity warrants to national private equity investors. These transactions ultimately resulted in the sale of a controlling stake in the company, though financial terms were not disclosed.

We advised a UK-based technology company in the renewables space with significant U.S. operations in a series of transactions to recapitalize its debt and equity structure in the second quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, helping them manage through a cash shortage until their promising technology could start to produce a profit.

This was accomplished through re-negotiating several million dollars in secured venture debt to extend payment terms and to provide that one-half of the debt will automatically convert to equity upon certain conditions. Another important aspect was re-negotiating several million dollars in additional secured debt owed to building contractors to provide for extended repayment and to exchange the majority of the outstanding debt for warrants to acquire equity in the company. We also assisted in negotiating a new multi-million dollar senior secured credit facility with venture lenders. 

Our client, an Ohio-based fitness technology company that creates fitness challenges for businesses and schools utilizing wearable devices, sought our advice throughout 2015 in a tax-free merger with an out-of-state provider of healthcare solutions and data analytics for employee populations.

We assisted our client with the formation of a strategy regarding transaction structuring and related tax matters; intellectual property issues, governance, capitalization, and the go-forward economic rights of prior owners in the combined company. We also provided assistance in negotiations with third parties, which included their large investor base, as well as risk mitigation and post-closing finance.