Corporate

For over five decades, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP (AGG) has served emerging and growing companies at all stages of their growth from start-up to early-public company to multi-billion dollar public company.

AGG counsels private companies on the structure of their business and their angel or venture capital financing. Over a decade ago, we co-founded the Atlanta Venture Forum, an association that today includes virtually every major venture capital firm in the Southeast. Our representation includes investors, venture capital firms and companies obtaining financing. We also maintain a national database of over 1,700 venture capital firms (and the names and phone numbers of their 8,000 key personnel) that may be sorted by geographic, industry, stage of financing, type of financing, and investment amount preferences. In 1999, the venture capital industry invested $48 billion in privately-held businesses, two-thirds of which was invested in Internet companies.

AGG has extensive experience in the establishment of strategic alliances. One technology client formed an alliance with ABC Television, receiving a significant investment and gaining access to content in the ABC News film library. We represented Atlanta Centennial Olympic Properties in the negotiation of sponsorships for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, including the sponsorships of Coca-Cola, IBM, Motorola, Anheuser-Busch, Sensormatic Electronics, Textron, Avon and all sponsorships of the 1996 Olympic Torch Relay. In 1999, on an industry-wide basis over $10 billion was invested in strategic alliances by 200 corporations.

AGG's extensive mergers and acquisitions practice guides the client through the process, addressing the structure of the transaction for tax deferrals, the indemnifications that survive the closing, the liquidity of any stock received in the sale and the structure of any earnouts. Negotiating mergers and acquisitions requires knowledge within many legal disciplines, including tax, securities, technology and intellectual property, environmental, healthcare, employee benefits, labor, and food and drug law. If a client finances an acquisition, our corporate finance attorneys will handle the financing on a concurrent path with the acquisition. For those clients looking to sell their business, we can introduce them to investment bankers with industry experience who can access targeted suitors and create a competitive bidding environment to maximize the value of the sale.

AGG's international practice has advised multinational software and internet businesses in offshore programming of software and websites at a 40%-60% cost reduction and in the marketing of these products and services in the United States.

If a client pursues a public offering, we can introduce the client to underwriters such as Chase H&Q and Robertson Stephens, recently ranked by DigitalSouth magazine as the leading technology underwriters in the Southeast, as measured by the number of initial public offerings. Since 1998, we have represented companies in over $2 billion of various securities transactions filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Internet agreements are often the legal backbone of an Internet business. We assist our clients with website and software development, hosting, advertising, co-branding, licensing and similar agreements.

News & Events > Find out about an AGG Intellectual Property Audit. > Bob Dow spoke at the Spring Decision Makers Conference of the Georgia Society of CPAs on "The Role of the Audit Committee: What is Required to Meet Heightened Market Expectations," April 23. > Stuart Johnson gave a presention at the AGG sponsored Capital Connection Conference hosted by the Association for Corporate Growth Atlanta Chapter, February 18-19. > Bob Dow and the Securities and Corporate Finance Group hosted a "Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and your form 10-K: What you need to know now" Breakfast Briefing on February 5. > Arnall Golden Gregory Names 5 New Partners: Jeffrey C. Adams, Henry R. Chalmers, Anthony L. Duncan, Anne F. Gerry, and J. Hayden Kepner Jr. > Clint Richardson was quoted in an Atlanta Business Chronicle article titled "Investors Wary of IPOs as New Charges Emerge" on October 28.  > Four attorneys from AGG have been included in the 2003-2004 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Congratulations to Randy Evans (Business Litigation, Legal Malpractice Law), Jon Golden (Corporate, M&A, Securities Law), Jerry Kaplan (Bankruptcy, Creditor-Debtor Rights Law) and Bert Levy (Trusts and Estates) for having been selected by their peers as best in their respective specialty areas. For more information, visit BestLawyers.com.

Related Practice Areas > > > Mergers & Acquisitions Securities & Corp. Finance Growth Companies