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MoFo Advises Pontifax AgTech in Sale of Conservis to TELUS Agriculture and Rabobank

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Morrison & Foerster advised Pontifax Global Food and Agriculture Technology Fund (“Pontifax AgTech”), a pioneering growth capital investor in food and agriculture technology, in the sale of its ownership interest in Conservis, a company that integrates

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Morrison & Foerster advised Pontifax Global Food and Agriculture Technology Fund (“Pontifax AgTech”), a pioneering growth capital investor in food and agriculture technology, in the sale of its ownership interest in Conservis, a company that integrates disparate farm technologies into one streamlined interface, to Rabobank, the premier global food and agriculture bank, and TELUS Agriculture, a global agriculture technology leader. Conservis enables family and institutional farms to organize data from different sources, eliminate error-prone manual entries, create winning business plans, and confidently manage costs, production, and marketing throughout the entire year. Together, Rabobank and TELUS Agriculture bring their expertise, experience, and global presence to further develop the Conservis farm management platform, helping solve farmers’ data challenges, empower their decision-making, and create sustainable, profitable opportunities with other contributors in the food value chain.The MoFo team advising Pontifax AgTech was led by San Francisco corporate partner Suz Mac Cormac, together with corporate associate Michael Santos, San Francisco tax partners Maureen Linch and Bernie Pistillo.Read more about the transaction in TELUS Agriculture and Rabobank’s joint <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210719005251/en/">press release</a>.

MoFo Advises Pontifax AgTech in Sale of Conservis to TELUS Agriculture and Rabobank

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Susan (“Suz”) co-chairs the ESG + Sustainability and Social Enterprise + Impact Investing practices. Her practice focuses on late-stage financings, secondaries, and other corporate transactions for investors, such as SoftBank and Temasek, and on investments for some of the top investors dedicated to impact, from “impact first” foundations to family offices to private equity funds. She co-led the drafting group for the first of the new corporate forms (the Social Purpose Corporation in California), has created hybrid/tandem corporate structures and crafted debt and equity instruments that blend impact with traditional financial terms, and has used corporate law to develop creative capital market solutions to pressing environmental problems. She also advises the boards of public and private companies on corporate governance and fiduciary duties as applied to sustainability and climate change.She was named a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) in 2012 and 2016 by Daily Journal and the Most Innovative Lawyer in North America in 2015 by the Financial Times.Leading Business AdvisorA powerhouse negotiator, clients note that “you cannot get a better corporate counsel” and that Suz “understands the big picture, could not be more responsive, and understands the business” (The Legal 500 US). She has extensive experience providing corporate and finance advice to companies and investors in connection with growth equity financings and secondaries, with particular experience in late-stage investments that have come to rival traditional strategic acquisitions in size and significance. Her experience includes leading some of the highest-profile late-stage investments over the past few years, including notable transactions for SoftBank Group (in the two largest private tender offers in history) in its $7.7 billion investment in Uber, $4.4 billion investment in WeWork, further $10 billion investment in WeWork, $1 billion investment in SoFi, and $250 million investment in Kabbage. She has also advised Temasek on its $800 million investment in Verily Life Sciences, Intel on its equity investment in Cloudera, and each of Fortress, TPG Rise, Vision Ridge Partners, Generation Investment Management, and Pontifax AgTech in numerous mid- to late-stage investments in clean technology, sustainability, education, food, and agriculture technology.Social Enterprise and Impact InvestingSuz is the go-to legal resource for social enterprises (for-profit and non-profit companies focused on social or environmental purpose), impact investors (investors interested in social or environmental returns), and mainstream companies developing environmental, social, and corporate governance policies. With deep expertise in the impact investing model, institutional investors exploring the space turn to her for creative solutions and her ability to structure both investments and companies to emphasize impact and returns.She represents a wide range of investors who are focused on impact, from foundations like the Gates Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and The Rockefeller Foundation, to family offices like Armonia, Cornerstone Capital, Emerson Collective, New Island Capital, and Omidyar Network, to private equity funds like Goldman Sachs, TPG Rise, Vision Ridge Partners, and Generation Investment Management, in their equity investments in companies and projects that are focused on generating impact and returns for investors. She has deep experience and expertise ensuring energy, sustainability, and other investments have positive impact through the use of new corporate forms, hybrid or “tandem” structures with non-profits and for-profits, and alternative debt and equity instruments.Notable work in this space includes the establishment of a tandem structure, The Carbon Endowment, to retire coal assets at scale while securing a revenue stream for community reinvestment and job training in coal communities. Suz also advised on the structuring of Common Sense Growth as an extension of the non-profit Common Sense Media (to invest in companies that address issues related to children, education, and technology), the establishment of a fund for TPG Rise to provide debt financing to Echoing Green fellows, the spin-out of PRX from Public Radio International (to generate new revenue flows up to the non-profit), the establishment of a for-profit joint venture with non-profit Medicines360 (to allow the non-profit to distribute its healthcare products to women in the developing world), and the structuring of a for-profit evergreen fund that allows The Nature Conservancy to aggregate return-seeking and donor capital in order to invest in preserving our natural resources. She has also advised numerous clients on converting to a public benefit corporation or social purpose corporation model (which requires balancing traditional fiduciary duties against a social or environmental purpose), including This American Life, Revolution Foods, Rise Labs, and Beneficial State Bancorp.Suz also regularly advises boards of directors of private and public companies, special committees, and CEOs on corporate governance, particularly the intersection of fiduciary duties with sustainability, and focuses on environmental, social, and governance issues.Unmatched Cleantech and Renewable Energy ExperienceIn addition to founding and chairing the firm’s Social Enterprise and Impact Investing Group, Suz serves as Chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Energy Group and has extensive experience representing start-up to late stage private companies in the clean technology or sustainability space. She provides corporate and finance advice in connection with equity and debt financings, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, reorganizations, and joint ventures. She has experience working with renewable energy start-up companies and renewable energy developers in the solar, wind, and biofuels industries. Suz has assisted renewable energy start up companies with raising venture capital and has advised renewable energy developers on project acquisitions.Suz’s representative renewable energy, cleantech, sustainable, and social enterprise clients include Anaergia, Change.org, EDF Renewables, E.ON, Etsy, First Look, OneSun, Planet Labs, Rising Sun Energy, RSF Social Finance, SustainBio, Trelys, Inc., Wikipedia, and Xpansiv.Board Activity and Thought LeadershipMs. Mac Cormac was a founding board member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), is a member of the board of directors of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), the Ceres President’s Council, and the Earth Genome Project, and is an advising board member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s Strategic Investor Initiative.She has joined the faculty (teaching on the intersection of sustainability and fiduciary duties) at both the Stanford Director’s College and the Northwestern Corporate Counsel Institute and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, teaching a course on Social Enterprise.

Susan Mac Cormac

Partner

Michael Santos is an associate in the San Francisco office of Morrison Foerster and is a member of the firm’s Corporate Group. Michael is a member of the firm’s Social Enterprise and Impact Investing Group.Michael counsels startup to late-stage private companies, venture capital and private equity investors, as well as family offices, private foundations and public charities in a broad range of transactional matters including early-stage and late-stage equity and debt financings, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, joint ventures and hybrid or “tandem” structuring arrangements between non-profit and for-profit entities.Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Michael was an associate at another international law firm, where he counseled clients on mergers and acquisitions and all aspects of corporate governance.Michael also serves as the president of The Futures Project, a private foundation that focuses on promoting education, youth development and juvenile justice in the Bay Area and Boston.

Michael Santos

Associate

Bernie Pistillo is a partner in the San Francisco office of the firm’s Federal Tax Group. He regularly advises on the U.S. federal income tax aspects of international and domestic mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings and spin-offs, and tax controversy matters in the international area, particularly transfer pricing, the development and exploitation of technology and intellectual property and the structuring of international operations for both start-up entities and existing corporate groups. His practice involves the coordination of tax laws in multiple jurisdictions to develop and implement cross-jurisdictional tax planning, overall operational synergies and worldwide tax minimization strategies. He also is regularly involved in the negotiation of strategic joint ventures and partnerships and the structuring of private equity funds and their investments. Bernie also advises on financial product development and the tax aspects of financial institution and insurance company operations.Bernie is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Tulane University School of Law, the Steering Committee of the Northern California Chapter of the U.S.A. Branch of the International Fiscal Association, the Planning Committee for the USC Gould School of Law Tax Institute, and the Tax Review and the Tax Club, both in New York City. He is admitted to practice in California, New York and Arizona.He is a frequent lecturer and author on matters relating to international taxation and corporate taxation generally.Bernie is recommended by Legal 500 US for US Taxes: Contentious, US Taxes: Non-Contentious and International Tax.Recent Client Transactions include:<ul><li>Softbank Corp. in connection with its $1 billion investment in WorldVu Satellites Ltd (OneWeb) and of SoftBank and OneWeb in connection with the negotiation and execution of an agreement pursuant to which OneWeb will merge with Intelsat SA in a share-for-share transaction.</li><li>Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd in making an $800 million investment in Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google Life Sciences), Alphabet’s health-focused subsidiary.</li><li>Boyd Gaming Corporation in the sale of its 50% equity interest, valued at $900 million, in Marina District Development Holding Company, LLC, the parent company of Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to MGM Resorts International.</li><li>The co-founder of Broadcom Corp. in connection with its acquisition by Avago Technologies Ltd. in a cash and stock transaction with a combined enterprise value of $77 billion.</li><li>VMWare in planning a joint venture with EMC Corporation to form a new cloud services business, as well as in connection with the planned $67 billion acquisition of EMC by Dell Inc. using tracking stock of VMWare.</li><li>McKesson Corporation in numerous acquisitions in the healthcare and related areas.</li><li>SoftBank Corp. in connection with its acquisition of a 78% interest in Sprint Nextel for an enterprise value of $44.8 billion.</li><li>MicroPort Scientific Corp. in connection with its acquisition of the worldwide OrthoRecon operating segment of Wright Medical Group Inc.</li><li>Toshiba Tec Corp. on its $874 million acquisition of the worldwide retail store solutions business of IBM Corp.</li><li>Textainer Group Holdings Ltd. in connection with a review of its worldwide operating structure to improve financial and legal efficiencies.</li><li>Novellus Inc. in its tax-free stock-for-stock acquisition by Lam Research Corp valued at $3.3 billion.</li><li>Carlyle Group in its acquisition of Walbro Engine Management from Sun Capital Partners and related LBO financing</li></ul>

Bernie J. Pistillo

Food + Agriculture

Mergers + Acquisitions