BI's Cohen leaving firm to join Raptor
Pittsburgh Business Times - by Patty Tascarella
Carl Cohen, one of Pittsburgh's leading deal-making lawyers, is leaving Buchanan Ingersoll PC after 27 years to join startup investment banking boutique Raptor LLC.
Effective Feb. 1, Cohen becomes Raptor's senior managing director with an undisclosed ownership stake in the Downtown company, said founder Craig Wolfanger, who launched Raptor last March after leaving investment firm Parker/Hunter Inc.
Parker/Hunter is now part of Philadelphia-based Janney Montgomery Scott.
It's a dramatic move. Raptor, six weeks short of its first anniversary, employs six. Buchanan, Pittsburgh's oldest law firm, employs 350 lawyers firmwide.
Cohen, who worked closely with entrepreneurs throughout his career, is excited about becoming one.
"It's a logical and natural step for me," he said, but acknowledged that leaving the firm he joined just after graduating from law school wasn't easy.
He helped start Buchanan's technology practice in the early 1980s and has co-chaired its corporate finance and technology group for the past five years. Known as a rainmaker at Pittsburgh's fourth-largest law firm, Cohen worked with dozens of startup companies through various development stages and handled major acquisitions.
"Carl re-shaped the corporate section and gave it direction which helped the entire firm regain momentum," said Buchanan CEO Thomas VanKirk. "He's transitioning his client list, and he's always been good about working a number of people (at Buchanan) into his relationships with clients. He's really grown beyond being a lawyer, and he will be tremendously successful."
Raptor advises public and private companies on mergers, acquisitions, capital structure and private financing. Last year, it shepherded five transactions, including Murrysville-based Respironics Inc.'s purchase of Bend, Ore.-based Mini-Mitter Co., last April. Wolfanger expects deal flow to double in 2006.
Raptor provides Cohen a wider geographic stage and the opportunity to use counseling skills honed over three decades. He enhances Raptor's connections in the technology and biotech markets, plus the national venture capital community, having worked with equity investors across the country in deals and as president of the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association.
Talks with Raptor began in late 2005.
"We go back 10 years or more," Cohen said of Wolfanger, "sometimes working on the same side of a deal, sometimes on the opposite side."
Cohen's move surprised many in the business community, but most said it makes sense.
"I wouldn't call Carl our general counsel, but he's pretty close to it," said Jack LeVan, CEO of Vocollect, a Wilkins-based developer of warehouse inventory technology. Cohen helped to incorporate the company in 1987. Cohen's move to investment banking "isn't something you see every day," LeVan said, but enables him to capitalize on his experiences.
"One thing I value in him as a lawyer is that his approach isn't very lawyerly," said LeVan. "He has extremely good people judgment and does so much to help companies, from inception to growth, to going public to maturing. There aren't many people who have such firsthand knowledge and have been as privy to inside issues."
Other executives who have worked with Wolfanger and Cohen say the match bodes well for Raptor.
"Carl has a wide range of legal experience, but it's not limited to just the aspects of the deal. He's knowledgeable about terms and conditions and purchase issues," said David Kelly, CEO of Matthews International Corp., North Side-based manufacturer of caskets and headstones.
Medrad Inc. CEO John Friel agreed. "Carl is a businessman's lawyer," he said. "He looks at legal issues in the broader context of the business issues. He's worked side-by-side with investment bankers and was very much engaged with whoever it was -- Parker/Hunter, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley."
Kelly said Raptor is unique in the local landscape -- an independent investment bank that is not part of a larger organization that provides money management and/or brokerage services.
"Putting these two together is wonderful for businesses in Western Pennsylvania because they'll work well, and it allows local companies to not have to go to New York City types," said Jim Liken, chairman of DynaVox Technologies, South Side. "They have similar and complementary skills and it strengthens Raptor."
He said he'll miss Cohen "on the legal side," but emphasized that DynaVox is pleased with Buchanan's service.
"They're very deep with talent," he said. "Any time someone the caliber of Carl leaves, I'm sure they'll be disappointed, but we live in an entrepreneurial world and people see opportunities they want to try."
PATTY TASCARELLA may be contacted at ptascarella@bizjournals.com.
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