Ethan Feffer

Ethan Feffer is the head of the Corporate Practice Group in the firm's Orange County, California, office. He has also chaired the firm's Mergers & Acquisitions team and its Private Equity team.

Areas of Practice

Mr. Feffer focuses on venture capital financings, private equity fund formation, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings. He represents publicly traded and privately held companies, and investors, in a variety of industries, including financial services, real estate, life sciences, electronics and software.

Mr. Feffer has completed over $10 billion in financings and mergers and acquisitions for clients such as Bank of America, CalPERS, FBR Capital Markets, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Piper Jaffray, Wells Fargo, The Carlyle Group, FirstMark Capital, SV Life Sciences and Versant Ventures. He has also assisted privately held companies in transactions with large public companies, including Bausch & Lomb, E*TRADE, Expedia, Medtronic and Novartis.

In addition to his transactional work, Mr. Feffer has extensive experience in public company reporting for NASDAQ and NYSE listed companies, including assisting them in complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and related stock exchange requirements. He serves as general counsel to publicly traded and privately held companies, where he advises boards of directors and handles the companies’ day-to-day legal needs.

Honors

• Lawdragon 3000 Leading Lawyers in America (client survey of the top 3000 lawyers in the U.S. representing less than 1% of the legal profession)
• Top 20 Under 40, Daily Journal’s 2005 survey of the top 20 lawyers in California under 40 years old
• Los Angeles Magazine “Super Lawyer” in securities and venture finance

Education

• J.D., University of California, Hastings College of the Law, 1992, Member, Hastings Law Journal
• Researcher, Harvard University Russian Research Center, 1988-89
• B.A., University of California at Berkeley, 1987
• Russian study, Leningrad State University, USSR, 1986

Admissions

• California

Representative Transactions

• Represented Clean Energy (NASDAQ: CLNE), the largest North American provider of natural gas vehicle fuels, in its IPO.
• Represented Alsius Corporation (NASDAQ: ALUS), the world leader in intravascular patient temperature control, in its public offering via SPAC merger, corporate governance and public reporting.
• Represented PeopleSupport (NASDAQ: PSPT), an offshore BPO company in its IPO, M&A, corporate governance and public reporting.
• Represented BioLase Technologies (NASDAQ: BLTI), a dental laser company, in its $52 million secondary public offering of common stock.
• Represented Virtual Tourist, a travel site, in its sale to Expedia.
• Represented SureFire, the world leader in military and sporting illumination products, in a private equity financing from Goldman Sachs and Brooklyn NY Holdings.
• Represented Wells Fargo as indenture trustee in a $200 million 144A debt placement by a national equipment rental chain.
• Represented management in a $500 million leveraged buyout of an auto finance company from Ford Motor Credit, including a $150 million 144A debt placement.
• Represented Wells Fargo as indenture trustee in connection with the bankruptcy restructuring of U-Haul, including a $200 million 144A debt placement.
• Represented CalPERS as founding limited partner in several domestic and international real estate opportunity funds with aggregate capital commitments in excess of $1 billion.
• Represented The Carlyle Group, Schroder Ventures, Versant Ventures and other venture capital funds in a number of investments in health care companies.
• Represented privately held technology companies in equity financings from venture capital firms, including Canaan Ventures, MPM Capital, Mayfield Funds, New Enterprise Associates and Pequot Capital.