Ropes & Gray Advised H.I.G Capital, Ginkgo Bioworks and The Vistria Group in Mergers & Acquisitions’ 2023 Deals of the Year

Ropes & Gray guided H.I.G. Capital in the $950 million acquisition of Avient Corp’s distribution business, which has been named a 2023 Middle-Market Deal of the Year winner by Mergers & Acquisitions. H.I.G Capital is a leading global alternative investment firm with $55 billion of equity capital under management. Avient Corp. is a global provider of sustainable and specialized material solutions.

In a description of the matter’s complexity, Mergers & Acquisitions wrote, “in the end, the deal involved multiple transactions, including an asset purchase, share purchase in multiple jurisdictions across the globe, transition services, reverse transition services and employee leasing arrangements.”

The Ropes & Gray team that represented H.I.G. Capital was led by private equity partner Carl Marcellino, and included senior associate Jessica Cooney, tax partner Adam Greenwood, benefits partners Matthew Jones and Stephanie Bruce, antitrust partner Chong Park, leveraged finance partners Stefanie Birkmann and Nichole Lopez-Tackett, environmental partner Peter Alpert, IP transactions partner Megan Baca, IP transactions counsel Emily Karlberg, data, privacy & cybersecurity partner Edward McNicholas, health care partner Kellie Combs, litigation partner Brendan Hanifin, litigation counsel Steven Kaye and real estate associate Steven Levick.

Additionally, Ropes & Gray received an honorable mention from Mergers & Acquisitions for advising Ginkgo Bioworks, a horizontal platform for cell programming, in an agreement to acquire biotechnology company Zymergen in an all-stock transaction that values Zymergen at approximately $300 million.

This Ropes & Gray team was led by mergers & acquisitions partner Suni Sreepada, mergers & acquisitions partner Marko Zatylny and included IP transactions partner Amanda Austin, employment & benefits partners Renata Ferrari, Richard Kidd and Megan Bisk, tax partner Pam Glazier, litigation & enforcement partners Lisa Bebchick, Mike McFalls, Martin Crisp, Ama Adams and Ruchit Patel, life sciences regulatory & compliance partner Kellie Combs, real estate partner Peter Alpert, data, privacy & cybersecurity partner Ed McNicholas, IP transactions partner Melissa Rones, business restructuring partner Andrew Devore, private equity partner Milap Patel, health care counsel Leslie Thornton, life sciences regulatory & compliance counsel Beth Weinman, litigation & enforcement counsel Deidre Johnson, Alison McLaughlin and Joseph Rafferty, real estate counsel Laurie Nelson and private equity counsel James Kaplan.

Ropes & Gray also received an honorable mentioned from Mergers & Acquisitions for advising The Vistria Group in a $200 million investment in Sandstone Care, a multispecialty mental health provider that focuses on teens and young adults and operates in Colorado, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia in June 2022.