2022 Attorneys of the Year: Classic Collision LLC, M&A Matters

Take, for example, Classic Collision LLC, a fast-growing auto collision repair business headquartered in Atlanta. Having been bought in 2019 by the private equity firm New Mountain Capital, Classic has gone on a significant acquisition spree over the past three years.

Classic Collision has grown from a small, regional business to become the country’s fourth-largest collision repair business, currently with three local shops. Classic now has more than 211 shops in 15 states. The company owned 28 shops when Henson Efron started working with it. The work came because of a prior relationship Henson Efron had with senior executives of a collision repair business previously headquartered in Minnesota.

Leading the legal work behind the acquisitions have been Henson Efron attorneys Clark D. Opdahl, Rochelle L. Hauser, Jeffrey W. Shea and Sarvesh Desai.

“We’re transactional business lawyers, helping our clients achieve their business goals,” Opdahl said. “This nomination is related to our work with this client in taking it from a regional business and helping it become a national collision repair business.”

Hauser said the work includes all phases of merger and acquisition work, from drafting and negotiating definitive purchase and lease documents to ancillary closing documents. The transactions are often very personal for the owners of the selling businesses.

For business owners, “This is the time when they get to realize their life’s work by selling their business and achieving a significant financial outcome,” Opdahl said. “And we help our client purchase the business it expects to acquire for the price it has agreed to pay.”

“Our firm is very collaborative,” Hauser said, “and we have an amazing team of attorneys, paralegals and assistants working on these transactions.”

Read more about Minnesota Lawyer’s superb class of Attorneys of the Year for 2022 here.