Michael J. Balent
Associate | Philadelphia
Michael J. Balent

Michael Balent focuses his practice on corporate and securities matters. Mr. Balent represents private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies as well as strategic buyers and sellers in merger and acquisition transactions across a wide range of industry sectors.

Mr. Balent joined Dechert as a summer associate in 2018.

  • Commercial Bakeries in connection with its acquisition of Imagine Baking, Inc., a manufacturing and packaging facility with an R&D laboratory.
  • Aquiline Capital Partners LP on its majority investment in DocuPhase LLC, a provider of accounting and finance process automation software.
  • Graham Partners, a private investment firm targeting advanced manufacturing companies, in connection with its acquisition of Commercial Bakeries Corporation, a producer of private label packaged cookies.
  • One Equity Partners in connection with its acquisition of Liquid Web, LLC from its former parent company Madison Dearborn Capital Partners.
  • Emtec, Inc. in its sale to Kelso & Company, as well as its restructuring and numerous acquisitions and joint ventures.
  • Graham Partners in connection with its sales of Mercer Foods and Giraffe Foods.
  • Graham Partners in connection with its investment in BrightSign, LLC, a provider of purpose-built media players, cloud-based networking solutions, and systems software for the worldwide digital signage market.
  • Myers EPS, a leading designer & manufacturer of highly engineered emergency lighting backup power technology, in its acquisition by Kohlberg & Company, LLC from Graham Partners.
  • CVC Capital Partners as the lead investor in a consortium that sponsored the combination of Worldwide Express, LLC and GlobalTranz Enterprises, LLC to create an industry leader with unique technology capabilities and market-leading solutions for the freight and parcel markets. Other consortium members include GlobalTranz's prior lead investors, Providence Equity Partners and PSG, while prior Worldwide Express lead investor, Ridgemont Equity Partners, also retained a significant stake in the combined entity.
  • PennantPark Investment Corporation (NYSE:PNNT) and PennantPark Floating Rate Capital Ltd. (NYSE:PFLT) in connection with their joint venture and capital markets activities and general corporate and securities matters.
  • Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing and commercializing differentiated products to address unmet medical needs, in its US$67.5 million initial public offering.
  • AHEAD, a leading authority in data, developer and infrastructure platforms, in its acquisitions of RoundTower Technologies and Kovarus.
Services
    • University of Delaware, B.A., 2016, magna cum laude
    • Vanderbilt University Law School, J.D., 2019
    • Pennsylvania