Chris Manderson

Chris Manderson is a Partner and Chair of the Corporate Department. Chris specializes in mergers & acquisitions, venture capital, debt and equity financing, distressed and restructuring transactions, and preserving and utilizing Net Operating Loss (NOL) tax assets.  He also advises public and private company boards and executives on all aspects of corporate governance.

He began his career as a transactional lawyer representing public companies, private equity funds, boards and executives in M&A and finance transactions at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Paul Hastings LLP. He also served as Executive Vice President & General Counsel at Real Industry, Inc., where he guided the company through a $525 million acquisition of an aluminum recycling business serving the automotive industry, and subsequent NASDAQ listing.

In addition to mainstream M&A, venture capital and corporate finance transactions, Chris specializes in distressed and restructuring transactions.  In the wake of the 2009 Financial Crisis, he reorganized companies preserving over $2 billion in NOL tax assets in chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, including Real Industry, Inc. (formerly Fremont General Corporation, a subprime mortgage lender with NOLs over $900 million), and Triad Guaranty, Inc. (formerly an insurance holding company with NOLs over $1.1 billion).

Chris has represented both public and private companies, private equity funds and individuals, including Rock & Republic Enterprises, Inc., Amgen, Inc., Dole Food Company, Seidler Equity Partners, Marwit Capital, Credit Suisse First Boston, Morgan Stanley & Co., former Olympic Gold Medalist Tyler Hamilton in the Lance Armstrong investigation, and many others.

Prior to law school, he lived in Japan and traveled extensively in Indonesia, Thailand, China and Nepal. He is a member of the State Bar of California.  Outside the office, Chris is an avid skier and mountain biker and restores vintage BMWs from the 1970s. He has 2 rescue dogs:  Wolfgang, a German Shepherd from Westside German Shepherd Rescue of Los Angeles, and Alex, a high-energy Belgian Malinois from Angels Bark Dog Rescue. 

Reorganization of Triad Guaranty, Inc. and preservation of $1.1 billion Net Operating Loss carryforward in chapter 11 (company side).  All equity interests preserved.

Sale of Bitium, Inc., a cloud-based identity and access management and SSO platform, to Google, Inc.

Series B financing for a drone services company providing aerial photography, videography, mapping & data collection (issuer representation)

Series A and Series B financing for a robotics and artificial intelligence solutions company in the food industry (issuer representation)

Series AA financing for an InsurTech risk modelling and analytics firm (investor representation)

Series Seed financing for a multi-network overlay SDN platform for Wi-Fi connectivity (investor representation)

Carve out of Semantics Manager business from Rogue Wave Software, Inc. (buyer representation)

$525 million carve out of Real Alloy, Inc., the aluminum recycling division of Aleris, Inc. (buyer)

Sale of NABCO, LLC by public company; $87 million purchase price (sell side)

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