M&A

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Earlier this month BLPB editor Ann Lipton wrote about the Delaware Supreme Court opinion in Sanchez regarding director independence (Delaware Supreme Court Discovers the Powers of Friendship).  On the same day as the Del. Sup. Ct. decided Sanchez, it affirmed the dismissal of KKR Financial Holdings shareholders’ challenge to directors’ approval of a buyout.  The transaction was a stock-for-stock merger between KKR & Co. L.P. (“KKR”) and KKR Financial Holdings LLC (“Financial Holdings”). Plaintiffs alleged that the entire fairness standard should apply because KKR was a controlling parent in Financial Holdings.  The controlling parent argument hinged on the facts that:

Financial Holdings’s primary business was financing KKR’s leveraged buyout activities, and instead of having employees manage the company’s day-to-day operations, Financial Holdings was managed by KKR Financial Advisors, an affiliate of KKR, under a contractual management agreement that could only be terminated by Financial Holdings if it paid a termination fee.

Chief Justice Strine, writing an en banc opinion for the Court,  upheld Chancellor Bouchard’s finding that KKR could not be considered a controlling parent where “KKR owned less than 1% of Financial Holdings’s stock, had no right to appoint any directors, and had no contractual right to veto any…

A while back, the CLS Blue Sky Blog  featured a post by Michael Peregrine on an article authored by Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo Strine (Documenting The Deal: How Quality Control and Candor Can Improve Boardroom Decision-making and Reduce the Litigation Target Zone, 70 Bus. Law. 679 (2015)) offering pragmatic advice to corporate directors in deal-oriented decision making.  Michael’s post summarizes points made by Justice Strine in his article, including (of particular importance to legal counsel) those set forth below.

  • “Counsel can play an important role in assuring the engagement of the strongest possible independent financial advisor, and structuring the engagement to confirm the provision of the full breadth of deal-related financial advice to the board; not simply the delivery of a fairness opinion or similar document.”
  • “[I]n the M&A process, it is critical to be clear in the minutes themselves about what method is being used, and why.”
  • “Lawyers and governance support personnel should be particularly attentive to documenting in meeting minutes the advice provided by financial advisors about critical fairness considerations or other transaction terms, and the directors’ reaction to that advice.”
  • “[P]laintiffs’ lawyers are showing an increasing interest in seeking discovery of

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As many readers already know, I teach Corporate Finance in the fall semester as a three-credit-hour planning and drafting seminar.  The course is designed to teach students various contexts in which valuations are used in the legal practice of corporate finance, the key features of simple financial instruments, and legal issues common to basic corporate finance transactions (including M&A).  In the process of teaching this substance, I introduce the students to various practice tips and tools.

As part of teaching M&A in this course and in my Advanced Business Associations course, I briefly cover the anatomy of an M&A transaction and the structure of a typical M&A agreement.  For outside reading on these topics, I am always looking for great practical summaries.  For example, Summary of Acquisition Agreements, 51 U. Miami L. Rev. 779 (1997), written by my former Skadden colleagues Lou Kling and Eileen Nugent (together with then law student, Michael Goldman)  has been a standard-bearer for me.  In recent years, practice summaries available through Bloomberg, LexisNexis, and Westlaw (Practical Law Company) have been great supplements to the Miami Law Review article.  In our transaction simulation course, which is more advanced, I often assign part of Anatomy…

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  I am married to the best husband and dad in the entire world.  (Sorry to slight all of my many male family members and friends who are spouses or fathers, but I am knowingly and seriously playing favorites here!)  My husband and I bought the anniversary memento pictured below a few years ago, and it just seems to be getting closer and closer to the reality of us as a couple (somewhat endearing, but aging) as time passes . . . .

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Of course, our wedding was not the only important event in 1985.  There’s so much more to celebrate about that year!  In fact, it was a banner year in business law.  Here are a few of the significant happenings, in no particular order.  Most relate to M&A doctrine and practice.  I am not sure whether the list is slanted that way because I (a dyed-in-the-wool M&A/Securities lawyer) created it or whether the M&A heyday of the 1980s just spawned a lot of key activity in 1985.

  1. Smith v. Van Gorkom was decided.  It was my 3L year at NYU Law.  I remember the opinion being faxed to my

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In this interview, Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo Strine singles out C & J Energy Services, Inc. v. City of Miami General Employees’ (“Nabors”), 107 A.3d 1049 (2014) as, perhaps, the most important opinion he has authored as CJ.

Given such an endorsement, I took time to read the case yesterday. The following paragraphs get to the heart of the case, which overturned the Delaware Court of Chancery’s mandate to shop the company at issue.

Revlon does not require a board to set aside its own view of what is best for the corporation’s stockholders and run an auction whenever the board approves a change of control transaction. As this Court has made clear, “there is no single blueprint that a board must follow to fulfill its duties,” and a court applying Revlon ‘s enhanced scrutiny must decide “whether the directors made a reasonable decision, not a perfect decision.”

In a series of decisions in the wake of Revlon, Chancellor Allen correctly read its holding as permitting a board to pursue the transaction it reasonably views as most valuable to stockholders, so long as the transaction is subject to an effective market check under circumstances in

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Professor  Steven Davidoff Solomon posted this article to the DealBook yesterday highlighting France’s new 2-votes for long-term shareholders law:  The Florange Law.  

The centerpiece of the Florange Law is a mandate that French companies give two votes to any share held for longer than two years. This goes against the historical one-vote-for-every-share system that most countries have. The law allows an opt-out if two-thirds of shareholders approve one by March 31, 2016.

ISS issued a guide (Download Impact-of-florange-act-france) opposing the law and encouraging investors to pressure directors to opt out of the law (through amendments to corporate bylaws) before the deadline.  

Professor Davidoff Solomon questions the strength of the one-share-one-vote corporate democracy in the U.S., noting that recent IPOs, like Facebook, went public with two classes of stock as a anti-takeover measure.  There is also the related question of what impact a law like this would have given the turnover rates of many institutional investors. 

-Anne Tucker

Monday, I had the privilege of moderating a discussion on structuring merger and acquisition transactions that I had organized as part of a continuing legal education program for the Tennessee Bar Association.  Rather than doing the typical comparison/contrast of different business combination structures (with charts, etc.), I organized the hour-long discussion around the banter that corporate/securities and tax folks have in structuring a transaction.  We used the terms of a proposed transaction (an LLC business being acquired by a public corporation) as a jumping-off point.

The idea for the format came from a water cooler conversation–literally–among me (in the role of a corporate/securities lawyer), one of my property lawyer colleagues, and one of my tax lawyer colleagues.  The conversation started with a question my property law colleague had about the conveyance of assets in a merger.   I told him that mergers are not asset conveyance transactions but, rather, statutory transactions that have the effects provided for in the statute, which include a vesting of assets in the surviving corporation.  I told him that I call this “merger magic.”  I showed him Section 259(a) of the Delaware General Corporation Law:

When any merger or consolidation shall have become effective…

For thirty years, I have had a pet peeve about the media’s routine reporting on mergers and acquisitions.  I have kept this to myself, for the most part, other than scattered comments to law practice colleagues and law students over the years.  Today, I go public with this veritable thorn in my side.

From many press reports (which commonly characterize business combinations as mergers), you would think that every business combination is structured as a merger.  I know I am being picky here (since there are both legal and non-legal common parlance definitions of the verb “merge”).  But a merger, to a business lawyer, is a particular form of business combination, to be distinguished from a stock purchase, asset purchase, consolidation, or statutory share exchange transaction.

The distinction is meaningful to business lawyers for whom the implications of deal type are well known.  However, imho, it also can be meaningful to others with an interest in the transaction, assuming the implications of the deal structure are understood by the journalist and conveyed accurately to readers.  For instance, the existence (or lack) of shareholder approval requirements and appraisal rights, the need for contractual consents, permit or license transfers or applications, or regulatory approvals, the tax treatment, etc. may differ based on the transaction structure.

Earlier this week I went to a really useful workshop conducted by the Venture Law Project and David Salmon entitled “Key Legal Docs Every Entrepreneur Needs.” I decided to attend because I wanted to make sure that I’m on target with what I am teaching in Business Associations, and because I am on the pro bono list to assist small businesses. I am sure that the entrepreneurs learned quite a bit because I surely did, especially from the questions that the audience members asked. My best moment, though was when a speaker asked who knew the term “right of first refusal” and the only two people who raised their hands were yours truly and my former law student, who turned to me and gave me the thumbs up.

Their list of the “key” documents is below:

1)   Operating Agreement (for an LLC)– the checklist included identity, economics, capital structure, management, transfer restrictions, consent for approval of amendments, and miscellaneous.

2)   NDA– Salmon advised that asking for an NDA was often considered a “rookie mistake” and that venture capitalists will often refuse to sign them. I have heard this from a number of legal advisors over the past few…

Bernard Sharfman has posted a new article entitled “Activist Hedge Funds in a World of Board Independence: Long-Term Value Creators or Destroyers?” In the paper he makes the argument that hedge fund activism contributes to long-term value creation if it can be assumed that the typical board of a public company has an adequate amount of independence to act as an arbitrator between executive management and the activist hedge fund. He also discusses these funds’ focus on disinvestment and attempts to challenge those in the Marty Lipton camp, who view these funds less charitably. In fact, Lipton recently called 2014 “the year of the wolf pack.” The debate on the merits of activist hedge funds has been heating up. Last month Forbes magazine outlined “The Seven Deadly Sins of Activist Hedge Funds,” including their promotion of share buybacks, aka “corporate cocaine.” Forbes was responding to a more favorable view of these funds by The Economist in its February 7, 2015 cover story.

Whether you agree with Sharfman or Lipton, the article is clearly timely and worth a read. The abstract is below:

Numerous empirical studies have shown that hedge fund activism has led to enhanced returns to investors and increased…