Adam Pretty

Adam enjoys assisting his clients with all manner of transactional legal and business issues.

He has experience counseling private equity clients and their portfolio companies with acquisitions, divestitures, cross-border transactions, joint ventures, and corporate governance. He has assisted public company clients with mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, commercial contracting, corporate governance, and entity formation. Adam also has experience guiding entrepreneurs through the equity financing process and addressing the legal challenges of early-stage businesses.

Adam joined Calfee’s Columbus office in 2021, and he was elected Partner in 2024. Prior to joining Calfee, Adam worked at Winston & Strawn LLP in their Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity practice group.

In 2015, Adam received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School, where he was a Notes and Submissions Editor of the Notre Dame Law Review and a Dean’s Circle Fellow.

He received his B.A. from Miami University in 2011, where he was awarded the Oxford Scholars Scholarship.

Honors & Recognitions

• Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch, Corporate Law, and Mergers and Acquisitions Law (2022-2024)
• Ohio Super Lawyers, Ohio Rising Stars, Mergers & Acquisitions (2023-2024)

Education

J.D., magna cum laude, Notre Dame Law School, 2015

B.A., Miami University, 2011

Experience

Adam’s experience includes the following representative transactions and clients:

Private Equity Firms

• Represented Wind Point Partners in numerous acquisitions, including the acquisition of Corbett Technology Solutions, Inc. a provider of communications and security solutions; Tropicale Foods, a manufacturer of frozen novelty food products; and Poggemeyer Design Group, a Bowling Green, Ohio-based engineering consulting firm.
• Represented Industrial Opportunity Partners in several acquisitions and divestitures, including the acquisition of Royston Group, a leading manufacturer of merchandising equipment and fixtures; Monroe Truck Equipment, a manufacturer of specialized truck equipment; and the divestiture of Trantech Radiator Products, a radiator manufacturer.
• Represented Next Sparc Growth Partners in its acquisition of Revel Bikes, a leading mountain bike manufacturer.
• Represented the Hunter Valley Company/Vitruvian Group in the acquisition of BOTSG, a manufacturer of boride abrasive products.
• Represented Thurston Group in numerous acquisitions, including the acquisition of E78 Partners, a financial consultant to the private equity industry; and the acquisition of many endodontics practices by US Endo Partners, a portfolio company specializing in endodontics surgery centers.
• Represented VetEvolve, a portfolio company of Align Capital Partners, in several acquisitions of veterinary care centers.
• Represented Norwest Equity Partners, in a number of deals, including the acquisition of Ramsey Industries, a manufacturer of aircraft parts; and the acquisition of Avtex Solutions, a customer experience focused technology company.
• Represented Longshore Capital Partners in several acquisitions, including the acquisition of Eclipse Advantage, a specialized labor management company.    

Public Companies

• Served as sole corporate legal counsel to a publicly traded Fortune 1000 company and coordinated input from employment specialists on post-closing restrictive covenants in a matter involving the client's acquisitions of 100% of the outstanding equity interests of a privately held company located on the East Coast. In addition to negotiating the stock purchase agreement, the transaction involved negotiating numerous post-closing covenants and agreements to maximize the ongoing value of the 2023 transaction for Calfee’s client.
• Served as sole corporate legal counsel to a publicly traded Fortune 1000 company and coordinated input from employment specialists on post-closing restrictive covenants. Calfee advised the client in its 2022 acquisition of 100% of the outstanding equity interests of three related East Coast construction products installation companies. In addition to negotiating the stock purchase agreement, the transaction involved negotiating numerous post-closing covenants and agreements to maximize the ongoing value of the transaction for Calfee's client.
• Served as sole corporate legal counsel to a publicly traded Fortune 1000 company and coordinated input from employment specialists on post-closing restrictive covenants. Calfee advised the client in its 2022 acquisitions of substantially all of the assets of a Pennsylvania-based company. In addition to negotiating the purchase agreement, the transaction involved negotiating numerous post-closing covenants and agreements to maximize the ongoing value of the transaction for the client.
• Represented Installed Building Products (IBP) in a number of deals, including the acquisition of AMD Distribution, Inc. a leading distributor of insulation and building materials products.
• Represented Hub Group (HUB) in numerous transactions, including the acquisition of Nonstop Delivery, LLC, a last-mile logistics provider; the acquisition of CaseStack, a logistics services provider; the sale of Mode Transportation, a leading shipping logistics provider.  
• Represented TreeHouse Foods (THS) in several acquisitions and divestitures, including the acquisition of ConAgra Foods private label operations; and the divestiture of TreeHouse Foods’ private label ready-to-eat cereal division to Post Holdings.
• Represented Ferro Corporation in its sale to Prince International Corporation.

Emerging Companies/Venture Capital Firms

• Represented Factor 75, an innovative provider of nutritious delivered meal packages, in its Seed and Series A financings, as well as general corporate counseling.
• Represented SchoolPass, a provider of school security software and technology, in its Series A financing.
• Represented mParticle, Inc. in its acquisition of Indicative, Inc., a customer journey analytics provider.
• SchoolPointe, Inc., a Columbus-based developer of management software for schools, in its sale to Finalsite.

Family and Privately Owned Businesses

• Served as M&A counsel to a leading electronics supplier in its sale to a publicly traded Fortune 100 manufacturer in 2022. The transaction involved a complicated supply agreement that allowed the client company to receive additional proceeds post-closing based on the sale of millions of dollars of inventory the company had on hand at closing. Calfee also represented an affiliate of the client company in a sale-leaseback transaction that was closed simultaneously with the closing of the sale of the operating company.
• Served as M&A Counsel in the 2023 sale of all of the equity of a leading privately held Ohio manufacturing company to a division of a publicly traded multi-billion-dollar European company.
• Serving as sole corporate legal counsel to a private holding company and its stockholders in a complex transaction providing liquidity for the client while maintaining their majority ownership interest in their operating companies. The ongoing transaction involves a wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly traded Canadian private equity firm investing multi-million dollars in a wholly owned subsidiary of Calfee's client company for a combination of preferred and common equity.
• Represented a family owned contract manufacturer of beauty supply and cosmetic products in its sale to a private equity buyer.
• Represented Millenium Capital and Recovery Corporation, a Hudson, Ohio-based recovery management services provider, in its sale to TRAKAmerica, a portfolio company of Flexpoint Ford.
• Represented a family held business in the acquisitions of a junior hockey league and a youth hockey developmental organization.
• Served as counsel to the founder of a gaming terminal company in its sale to a national casino gaming corporation.

ESOPs

• Represented Marsh, Berry & Company, Inc., a Cleveland-based M&A financial advisor, in its sale to Atlas Merchant Capital.
• Represented the client in the acquisition of Kleinfelder, Inc., an ESOP-owned engineering services firm.

Publications

• "Dropping the Ball: The NCAA’s Failure to Address Concussions in College Football," Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 89, Issue 5 (2015)