Matt Galo counsels private companies and their founders, investors and management teams in all aspects of their corporate activities, including formation and governance issues, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, business counseling and negotiations, management issues, restructurings and transition. He serves as leader of our firm’s Private Companies practice group.
In addition, Mr. Galo represents bank holding companies and other financial institutions in their mergers and acquisitions, including FDIC-assisted acquisitions of failed banks, as well as regulatory, corporate and governance matters.
Mr. Galo has broad experience in business combinations involving mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private offerings, private equity and venture capital investment, recapitalizations and other transactions. His work was recently recognized by the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Report U.S. 2010, for achievement in M&A in representing online media start-up EveryBlock LLC in its acquisition by MSNBC.com. He works with companies across a variety of industries, including:
- Banking and financial services, including mortgage banking, asset management and premium finance
- Food products and ingredients
- Consumer and commercial products and manufacturing
- Media and consulting
- Nanotechnology and life sciences
- Clean energy technology
In addition, he has represented foreign investors in structuring and negotiating their U.S. private equity investments.
Speeches and Presentations
In his financial institutions practice, Mr. Galo is actively involved in counseling banks, their holding companies and investors in FDIC assisted acquisitions, and has successfully closed several such deals in 2010-2011. He spoke on the subject as co-presenter of the Schiff Hardin-sponsored webinar, "FDIC-Assisted Acquisitions: The Rules Have Changed," conducted in April 2010, and as moderator of a follow-up webinar in December 2010, "Assessing Strategic Bank Acquisitions: Open-Bank v. FDIC-Assisted Transactions."
Mr. Galo has given presentations to clients' in-house legal and corporate development teams, investment banking groups and family-owned business organizations on a variety of topics, including negotiating mergers and acquisitions and private company ownership transition.
Previous Experience
Earlier in his career, Mr. Galo was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy (1989-1993), where he served as damage control officer on the destroyer USS Stump (DD-978) and division officer aboard the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61).
Awards and Honors
Leading Lawyer — Corporate Finance; Securities & Venture Finance, Illinois Leading Lawyers Network