Tom practices with Sutherland’s Corporate Practice Group, focusing on mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, formation of joint ventures and securities transactions.  He has significant experience in representing publicly held companies and private equity groups in their acquisition programs.  Tom has spent his entire career at Sutherland and has held several firm management positions, including two tenures as chair of the Corporate Practice Group and a term on the firm's Executive Committee.
 
Tom’s recent notable merger, acquisition and divestiture engagements include:

• Representation of Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE) in its acquisition of five aggregates quarries located in the Atlanta metropolitan area and Chattanooga from Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE) in exchange for cash and aggregates facilities located in California, Texas and North Carolina;
• Representation of a consortium of purchasers, led by Resource Management Service LLC, in its acquisition of approximately 4 million acres of U.S. timberlands from International Paper Company for $5 billion in an installment note transaction;
• Representation of Temple-Inland Inc. (NYSE) in its sale of 1.55 million acres of U.S. timberlands to an investment group led by The Campbell Group, LLC for $2.38 billion in an installment note transaction;
• Representation of The Forestland Group LLC, a timberland investment management organization, in its acquisition of Anderson-Tully Company, a private REIT that owns 323,000 acres of hardwood timberlands located along the southern Mississippi River and operates a hardwood sawmill complex in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in a transaction valued at $465 million; and
• Representation of KODA Enterprises Group, LLC, a private equity investor, in its acquisition of Ribelin Sales, Inc., a distributor of specialty chemicals, for an undisclosed amount of cash.

Tom’s recent significant joint venture transactions include:

• Representation of The Forestland Group, LLC in its acquisition from existing shareholders of a majority interest in Yalbac Ranch & Cattle Corporation, which owns over 160,000 hectares of timberlands in Belize and related lumber and citrus operations; and
• Representation of Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE), as managing member, in the formation of Hunt Martin Materials LLC, a joint venture with Hunt Midwest Mining, Inc. that operates approximately 20 aggregates quarries in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area.

Tom has served on several committees of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia that have had a significant impact on corporate practice in Georgia.  He currently serves on the Corporation Code Revision Committee and served on that committee as Secretary when it last undertook a complete revision of the Georgia Business Corporation Code.
 
Tom is a member of the Advisory Board of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy (the University at Albany, State University of New York) and co-chairs the Development Committee.  He is a Fellow of the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia and is a member of the Negotiated Acquisitions Committee of the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association.  Tom has been listed repeatedly in The Best Lawyers in America and has been named repeatedly to Georgia Trend magazine’s “Legal Elite” and as a “Super Lawyer” by Atlanta magazine.