Marissa B. Wiley

My focus

I provide counsel to companies, investors, and founders at every stage in a business’s lifetime—from inception to liquidation, and everything in between. In particular, I bring significant value by guiding my clients through each major milestone in a business’s life—formation, investments/fundraisings, mergers, and exit. My goal is to achieve optimal results for my clients, drawing upon my extensive experience on all sides of these transactions across a diverse range of industries and balancing my formidable attention to detail with my business savvy.

Formation

I help entrepreneurs and investors coalesce their vision and relationship into an advantageous legal entity. I work to create a thoughtful foundation, with clear and delineated rights and obligations, which is critical to the future of any successful enterprise. For example, I assist my clients in the fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries to structure and build joint ventures as they branch out into other revenue streams and create new lines of business to further monetize their brand and intellectual property.

Fundraising and Investment

I help my clients capitalize on growth. I partner with companies through their equity fundraisings, advise investors in connection with their financing of such companies, and collaborate on equity awards for the key individuals contributing to the companies’ growth. For example, I assist my clients in the technology industry to bring additional investors into their companies, thereby acquiring the funds required to breathe life into their expanding visions. On the other end of the spectrum, I negotiate advantageous equity awards for my fashion, beauty, and entertainment clients in connection with their brand-building and promotional activities for other companies.

Mergers and Acquisitions

I partner with my clients to build bigger, stronger businesses by orchestrating mergers and acquisitions, strategically positioning my clients for exponential advancement through combination with synergistic targets or acquirers. For example, I assist health care facilities in acquiring attractive targets to drive efficiencies and help regional craft breweries in combining forces with other producers and distributors with a national reach.

Exits

I help my clients realize and monetize the value of their long-term investments. When equity holders are ready to exit their investments and access capital, I effectuate sales of assets or ownership interests, enabling my clients to extract maximum value, while mitigating the ongoing risk associated with the business. For example, I represent solar developers in connection with their sales of solar panel projects to buyers who are looking to expand in the clean energy market.

Representative experience

Marissa’s extensive experience across a variety of industries includes representing:

• Manufacturing companies in connection with sales of the companies or specific business lines to strategic and private equity buyers, including bespoke structuring and customized representation designed to meet each client’s specific needs and visions for the future
• Medical practices in connection with partnerships with private equity market participants, achieving logistical efficiencies by offloading administrative burdens and extracting otherwise illiquid value from the business
• Consumer brands in connection with brand protection and brand building, including the formation and structuring of companies to house ventures, with celebrity talent, athletes, and social media influencers
• Social media personalities, including some of the most-followed and highest-earning content creators on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, in connection with monetizing their intellectual property by way of formulating joint ventures and analyzing and configuring equity incentives offered as compensation for services
• Actors, models, and professional athletes in negotiating with consumer brands, joint ventures, and manufacturing and distribution companies for new product line launches, as well as negotiating equity stakes in such enterprises
• Technology companies (e.g., mobile applications) in connection with various rounds of fundraising and corresponding negotiation with investors in connection with such financings
• Solar energy developers in connection with the sales and acquisitions of clean energy projects
• Licensed health care facilities and providers in connection with corporate governance and structuring, as well as acquisitions and mergers with other health care entities, which includes navigation of particular regulatory structures and requirements
• Large regional breweries and food distributors in connection with sales to national acquirers, including negotiation of governance structure and rollover equity in the surviving entity, employment agreements for founders and other employees staying on with the business and licensing issues
• Investors in connection with making investments in a variety of businesses and platforms at all stages, from early-stage growth equity to late-stage and secondary investments

Looking ahead

Continuing on the momentum gained in 2024, I expect to see several strong years ahead for the deployment of private equity capital and a corresponding increase in deal volume. Investors are eager to put their substantial reserves of cash to good use, particularly in advanced technology fields, including AI and other Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. As we put the economic upset of the COVID era further behind us, we are moving forward with more confidence and certainty, building on the knowledge, skills, and tools we gained during those challenging times. I also expect consumers to double down on the demand for ethical and socially and ecologically conscious products and solutions, and companies will focus on these values to boost returns.