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Edward Xia is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group in the firm's Los Angeles office.

The term “Acqui-hire” is commonly used to describe an M&A transaction where the buyer is predominantly interested in acquiring key employees of the target and not specifically the underlying business and/or assets. This type of transaction is particularly common in the technology and software industries, where key talent can often be more valuable than the underlying product or service, although it has become more prevalent in other industries as well. For the target employees and founders, such an acquisition may represent a “soft landing” in the event that they find that their organization won’t scale in the way that was previously imagined or if their funding sources have dried up.Continue Reading What You Need to Know about Acqui-Hires

Technology solutions for the transfer, storage and management of electronic files and other digital content is vitally important for organizations to meet compliance obligations, ensure adequate data security and to administer company data generally.  Companies that provide solutions in this space – including in managed file transfer (MFT), file transfer protocol (FTP), cloud content storage and management and file sync-share, among others – are therefore very attractive targets for buyers in the “software-as-a-service” space.  Given that these businesses are charged with safeguarding their client’s precious data, however, there are unique issues in doing deals involving these types of businesses, which both potential buyers and sellers must be aware of.Continue Reading Buying and Selling a File Management, Storage and Transfer Business