In a Global Franchise advertorial titled, “Akerman Proves the Value of Having a High-Quality Legal Partner,” Kevin Hein, co-chair of the Franchise and Licensing Sector Team, based in Denver, and Karyn Koiffman, partner in the Corporate Practice Group in New York and Washington, D.C., described the rapidly changing M&A landscape in the franchise industry.
"We're doing a lot of mergers and acquisitions work," Hein said. "Right now, we're seeing a lot of what we call refranchising and defranchising. There are some systems that have decided that they're going to sell off corporate units to franchisees, and we're working on one project with a company that is looking to sell over 500 corporate units into the franchise world."
Koiffman added: "We do a lot of work for private equity funds and family offices. Recently, I've completed three transactions in that space, one for a private equity fund, and two for a family office in which they bought franchisors in the healthy food and home renovations sectors. I do a lot of work with Latin America..and especially with Brazil, with it being the second largest franchise market."