The POWER 30: Maggie Tatton

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Ballard Spahr LLP

Maggie Tatton is bullish about mergers and acquisitions in 2024, at least in the middle market. She represents private and public companies and private equity funds in mergers, acquisitions, sales and other strategic business transactions, including joint ventures, minority investments, roll-ups and carve-out transactions.

She also represents management teams making minority investments alongside institutional investors, and she provides assistance to startup entrepreneurs and rapidly growing companies in the areas of entity formation, general corporate services and fundraising.

The fourth quarter of 2023 has been busy, after a slow start and rebound last year. Financing has rebounded with credit markets starting to open up last June and July after being closed at the beginning of the year.

Private equity is one of the biggest players in the market, but its deals tend to be smaller than in past years, which is what keeps the middle market going, Tatton said.

Tatton and other M&A lawyers provide the infrastructure that allows private equity to make deals. “We help structure the transactions and make them as tax efficient as possible. We negotiate and draft all the transaction documents. I’ve seen checklists of over 100 items in one transaction.” Tatton and her team advise their clients how to minimize risk and close the deal.

“One of the primary things I like about M&A, is that the parties want the same thing. They look at lawyers as partners. Both parties win,” she said.

Ballard Spahr always seeks more private equity clients for deal-making and also for forming the funds with the documentation that will encourage investment, Tatton said.

“We’ve brought in more partners. We’re building our ranks and always seeking new clients,” she said. Ballard Spahr has more than 600 lawyers nationwide and 62 in Minneapolis.

Private equity deals aren’t the only mountain Tatton has climbed. In February 2015, Tatton summited Mount Kilimanjaro and in July 2018, she summited Mount Rainier.