As the credit crunch continues and the markets near the bottom, well-positioned strategic and financial dealmakers are seeing acquisition opportunities. To get deals done, buyers and sellers are adapting their deal strategies midst the turbulence as all parties look for protection against uncertain times. In the absence of abundant deal flow and highly-leveraged transactions, some buyers are turning to distressed asset sales. Navigating the credit markets has never been more challenging, but with investment-grade bond offerings on the rise, the lending market is beginning to reawaken.

By participating in "Doing Deals in a Down Market," presented by The Deal and Merrill Corp., you will hear opinions and perspective from active transaction experts, including:


Moderator:

DAVID CAREY
Senior Writer
The Deal LLC

GREGG FEINSTEIN
Managing Director & Co-Head of M&A
Houlihan Lokey

Mr. Feinstein is a Managing Director in Houlihan Lokey's New York office and co-head of the firm's M&A Group. He is also the firm's co-chair of the M&A Commitment Committee and a member of the firm's Corporate Finance Board of Directors. He has nearly three decades of M&A experience, largely focused on advising publicly traded companies on a variety of matters.

Before joining Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Feinstein ran the M&A Group at Jefferies & Company, where he led that firm's efforts in both public and private transactions across many industries. Before that, he was a founder of Berenson Minella & Company, an M&A boutique, where he spent 12 years and was its chief operating officer. Earlier in his career, he worked in the M&A department at both Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb.

During Mr. Feinstein's career, his notable M&A transactions include the hostile takeover defense of Stelmar Corporation, the recapitalization of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, the privatizations of Big Flower Holdings and Workflow Management, and the recapitalization of Samsonite Corporation, which was M&A Advisor's 2003 Middle Market M&A Deal of the Year.

Mr. Feinstein graduated summa cum laude with a B.S.E. in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is registered with FINRA (formerly the NASD) as a General Securities Representative (Series 7 and 63).

Paul F. Hartzell, senior vice president of Merrill DataSite Services, began his career in the financial services industry in 1981 with Kidder Peabody & Co.,Inc., where he held Series 7, Series 63 and State of California Insurance licenses. While there, he developed some of the first online programs to allow the simultaneous purchase of convertible securities and options on multiple exchanges. From 1985 to 2001, Paul worked for Sorg Printing, RR Donnelley and Merrill Corporation, where he built one of the largest individual account bases in the financial printing industry and generated more than $75 million in sales revenue for Merrill. In May of 2001, Paul became vice president of sales for PostX Corporation, a privately held, venture-backed software provider bought by Cisco in 2007. After helping PostX to secure an $11 million Series E financing, he returned to Merrill to launch Merrill's DataSite. Since then, Merrill DataSite has hosted thousands of online due diligence projects with millions of pages of information, earning $85 million revenues in 2008. Paul holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University.

W. GREGG SLAGER

Gregg, a Transaction Advisory Services partner, leads the Americas Private Equity practice. He has over 25 years of experience and has worked on over 500 engagements for leading global private equity firms, investor groups and corporate dealmakers across industries. His transaction experience includes mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances, initial public offerings, spin-offs, carve-outs and asset sales. Gregg's private equity experience expands beyond transactions to include fund services and portfolio company support.

He is one of the firm's thought leaders around private equity and lead the development of the differentiated enterprise-wide global private equity service model. Additionally, he has deep experience in SEC and capital markets matters and is a speaker at continuing education and national training programs on a number of private equity and financial reporting topics. A certified public accountant, Gregg also has spoken at State Certified Public Accountant societies on technical matters on financial reporting and diligence.

Gregg is based in New York and has worked in a number of office locations during his career, including two years in London working on diligence and corporate finance projects throughout Western Europe. In addition to his current role, he serves on various ongoing and ad hoc firm task forces and committees including the Gender Equity and Alliance Review Committee. He is currently on the board of the Manhattan Theatre Club and has been on the boards of various non-profit media and entertainment entities including radio broadcasting, cable access organizations and community news publications.

Mr. Sorensen is a managing director with CarVal Investors. He is responsible for managing short- and long-term investments within the firm's Corporate Securities book. Mr. Sorensen joined CarVal Investors in 2004. He began his career in credit trading in 1990, and has worked in New York and London for JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, and Toronto Dominion. Mr. Sorensen received his B.A. with honors in Political Economy from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

CarVal Investors is a leader in managing opportunistic value investments. Founded in 1987 by Cargill, CarVal Investors has quietly acquired more than $25 billion in assets in 3,600 transactions. The firm has been a first mover or early entrant across the globe, having invested in 46 countries. Today, CarVal Investors manages over $8 billion in assets.

This complimentary Webcast will examine successful strategies for:

• Determining appropriate valuations in a volatile market
• Sourcing alternative financing
• Negotiating innovative deal structures
• Identifying and accessing distressed opportunities
• Legal considerations, such as material adverse change clauses and fraudulent transfers in distressed asset sales