Martin A. Wellington

MARTIN WELLINGTON is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, the managing partner of the Palo Alto office, and co-leader of the Emerging Companies and Venture Capital (ECVC) practice. He is also a member of the M&A, Private Equity, and Capital Markets practices.

Martin counsels technology companies, private equity funds and investment banks on a variety of transactions, including capital formation, M&A, leveraged buyouts and joint ventures. His clients include publicly held technology companies, in addition to companies looking to enter the public markets.

Martin was recommended in Legal 500 US 2016 in several categories of M&A/Corporate and Commercial in addition to Finance Capital Markets. Named an “Up & Coming” lawyer for Corporate/M&A: Northern California in Chambers USA 2014, he was also featured in the 2011 and 2012 Financial Times’ “US Innovative Lawyers” reports for his work as lead counsel on the IPOs of Pandora and Angie’s List, respectively.

Prior to joining Sidley, Martin was a partner with an international law firm and he also served at the U.S. Department of State from 1989–1993.

Representative matters include:

• nCino on its:
  • US$287 million initial public offering and its US$555 million follow-on offering; and
  • US$1.2 billion acquisition of SimpleNexus; and
  • Acquisitions of DocFox, Allegro, and FullCircl.
• Vector Capital on its:
  • Sales of Corel to KKR, 20-20 Technologies to Golden Gate Capital and CollabNet to TPG Acquisition;
  • Acquisitions of CollabNet, Gerber Scientific, Precise Software Solutions, Tripos, Pharsight and the minority interests in Corel Corporation and its sale of Certara; and
  • US$2.2 billion M.B.O. bid for Quest Software.
• WatchGuard on its sale to Vector Capital.
• Grove Collaborative on its:
  • Series D-1 and Series E Preferred Stock financings;
  • DeSPAC merger with Virgin Group Acquisition Corp. II, valued at US$1.5 billion, including its US$86 million PIPE financing and US$50 million redemption backstop financing; and
  • Equity Line of Credit and PIPE financings.
• Pandora Media on its:
  • Pre-IPO tender offer to provide liquidity to investors and employees;
  • US$235 million initial public offering and US$523 million follow-on offering of common stock;
  • US$345 million private placement of convertible senior notes due 2020 (the 2020 Note) and its privately negotiated exchange of US$192.9 million aggregate principal amount of 2020 Notes for a new issue of senior convertible notes due 2023;
  • US$145 million acquisition of AdsWizz and US$200 million disposition of Ticketfly to EventBrite;
  • Response to activist stockholder campaigns;
  • US$480 million investment from Sirius XM Radio; and
  • US$3.5 billion sale to Sirius XM Radio.
• Coupang on its acquisition of the business and assets of Farfetch via a UK pre-pack administration.
• Angie’s List on its:
  • US$114 million initial public offering and $110 million follow-on offering of common stock;
  • Response to activist stockholder campaigns; and
  • Merger with HomeAdvisor to form ANGI Homeservices Inc. (NASDAQ: ANGI), valued at approximately US$5 billion.
• Centerview Partners on its role as financial advisor to the Independent Transaction Committee of the Board of Directors of Sprint Corporation in connection with the proposed combination of Sprint and T-Mobile US, Inc., valued at US$146 billion.
• Blackbaud on its acquisitions of EVERFI, MicroEdge, SmartTuition and JustGiving.
• Cadence Design Systems on its:
  • Investment in Green Hills Software;
  • Unsolicited offer to acquire Mentor Graphics; and
  • Acquisitions of Rocketick Technologies, nusemi, SFM Technologies and Forte Design Systems.
• Armis on its US$150 million acquisition of Silk Security.
• Corel on its:
  • Acquisitions of the Roxio business from Rovi Corporation and Pinnacle business from Avid; and
  • Acquisitions of MindManager, ClearSlide and the Parallels business.
• Resident Home on its acquisition by Ashley Home.
• Afilias, Inc. in connection with its sale to Donuts Inc.
• Singular Key on its acquisition by Ping Identity.
• Cambium Networks Corporation in its initial public offering and its secondary public offering of 2.5 million ordinary shares sold by an affiliate of Vector Capital at US$28.00 per share.
• Volkswagen AG in its co-investment with Ford Motor Company in autonomous vehicle technology company, Argo AI, valuing Argo at US$7.1 billion.
• Argo Blockchain on its initial public offering.
• The RealReal in its US$345 million initial public offering.
• Sale of Spireon by Bertram Capital to Greenbriar Equity Group.
• Centrify Corporation in connection with a majority investment by Thoma Bravo.
• Underwriters of the initial public offerings of Splunk, Chegg, Café Press, Carbonite, and Reach Local.
• The convertible note offerings by HomeAway, Callidus, and Outerwall,and high-yield notes offering by Outerwall.
• Symantec on its US$1.3 billion acquisition of the authentication and identity security business of VeriSign.
• E*TRADE Financial’s US$500 million follow-on public offering of common stock and exchange offer for US$1.7 billion of its outstanding debt securities.
• Reliance Steel & Aluminum’s US$1.3 billion acquisition of Metals USA.
• Francisco Partners’ joint venture in Numonyx with Intel and STMicroelectronics.
• Acrisure in its recapitalization and partial buyout by ABRY Partners of Genstar’s position in Acrisure.
• Intapp in its recapitalization and partial buyout by Temasek by way of a tender offer for a portion of the positions of Great Hill Partners and other pre-existing investors.
• Abakus on its acquisition by SAP.
• SunPower on its offering of convertible notes and its acquisition of SolarBridge Technologies.
• Gerber Scientific’s spinoff of its Spandex distribution business.

Some of the above matters were handled prior to joining Sidley.

• Girls on the Run of the Bay Area, Board of Directors (2009–2015); Chairman (2011–2013)