Greenberg Traurig recently announced that it has signed Dallas corporate shareholder Steven Bartz.
Bartz was previously at DLA Piper. He praised Greenberg Traurig’s “impressive, balanced growth” across the firm and in Dallas in particular and pointed to the firm’s expertise in a variety of practices, including sports and entertainment, healthcare, intellectual property, real estate, finance, labor and employment and litigation.
“Greenberg Traurig has a deep bench in those and other areas, but, notwithstanding our increasingly global and interconnected world, having those colleagues in your same town is a benefit that will probably never become passé.”
Bartz focuses his practice on transactions involving sophisticated joint ventures – including those unrelated to M&A deals like private investment funds and those in connection with M&A – and strategic alliances.
According to his firm bio, Bartz has represented Tailwater Capital and Rosewood Private Investments in joint venture deals. He counsels clients on matters that span the finance, hospitality and leisure, sport and entertainment, real estate, healthcare and energy sectors.
The Texas Lawbook reported in May 2018 that Bartz helped lead a DLA Piper team that advised San Antonio-based Tricity Pain Associates on a recapitalization and investment by Austin healthcare buyout firm Spindletop Capital Management.
In a more recent matter, Bartz advised an investment and development holding company located outside of the U.S. in three separate distress acquisitions of divisions of a North American business. He said what made the transaction especially interesting was that it included insolvency dynamics, related indemnification issues for portions of the deal not “cleansed” by bankruptcy proceedings and a transition services agreement involving businesses operating on multiple continents.
“On top of all of that, the ‘target business’ was effectively spread among multiple legal entities, so ensuring that all aspects of that business were teased out of the seller’s organizational structure and were acquired, and could be operated post-closing with minimal business disruption, was another hurdle that our deal team had to overcome,” he added.
Bartz says he is seeing more willingness from companies and private investors in doing deals where less than 100% of the target is sold.
“Many different dynamics are creating that trend, including investment funds with large amounts of dry powder becoming increasingly creative in their deal structuring in order to be more competitive in their efforts to successfully deploy capital,” he said.
“Additionally, joint ventures, when properly structured and executed, can reduce the risk of major capital investments and can reduce the amount of time needed to achieve a return on investment. It might not be surprising that shared incentives and collaboration might yield better results than zero-sum deals.”
Greenberg Traurig is the fifth stop for Bartz since he graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2006. In addition to DLA Piper, he has also practiced at K&L Gates, King & Spalding and Thompson & Knight, where he made partner.