Alternative Growth Strategies, Part II - Geographic Expansion (Members Only Breakfast Series)

Mark’s main focus at Mangrove is transaction execution. Prior to joining Mangrove, Mark was an M&A and corporate transactional attorney for over twelve years. During his tenure as a deal lawyer, Mark worked extensively with private equity funds and their portfolio companies in connection with investment, M&A and financing transactions. Mark also frequently worked with entrepreneurs and middle market businesses in a wide range of corporate transactions, including investments by financial and strategic partners and liquidity events. Mark no longer practices law, but he continues to draw from this prior experience in his efforts at Mangrove. Mark holds a JD from American University, Washington College of Law (summa cum laude) and a BA from Bucknell University.

Throughout his professional career, Clinton has amassed a wealth of experience across several fields. Following six years working as a US Coast Guard officer, Clinton spent six years working in M&A and corporate finance at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in New York. In this position, Clinton structured, negotiated and prepared documentation for a full range of financial and securities transactions for public and private corporate entities, predominantly in overseas and offshore markets with a specific focus on international private equity and restructuring transactions.

Following this, Clinton took up the position of Managing Director at Rudoeu Consulting developing and managing strategy and operations of the boutique investment banking firm. Clinton acted as the senior advisor to U.S. and European clients seeking to make investments or increase business in India and to Indian clients seeking to access capital markets in the U.S., Europe and East Asia.

Succeeding his time in India, Clinton gained the positions IT Strategy & Planning Specialist and Strategic Sourcing Contract Manager at Verizon Communications. His role at Verizon was to assist the IT Strategy and Planning Group with contract analysis, development of financial strategy, negotiation of major hardware and software license agreements, divestiture of the company’s landline business in 14 US states, and management of a multi-billion dollar budget. In this role Clinton also managed strategic contracts with IT vendors and developed strategies for relations with key vendors.

Clinton’s final position, prior to joining Benchmark International, was as CFO and General Counsel of Avesta Homes LLC. At Avesta Homes Clinton managed the finance, IT, HR and compliance departments of this private-equity funded, multi-family real estate owner and property manager holding assets across the State of Florida.

Clinton has worked hard to develop a key skill of particular importance to Benchmark International’s clients – negotiating cross-border sales.  In addition to handling scores of international transactions such as the sale of a US rice company to a Spanish food conglomerate, the purchase of a Chilean phone company by a US private equity fund, the purchase of a patent-rich fiber optics start up by an international telecom equipment provider, and the purchase of several US quarry operators by a publically-traded Irish corporation;  he has been published on the subject several times, taught the John Sykes College of Business at the University of Tampa course on “The Art and Science of Negotiation” and guest lectured on cross-border transactions at universities and symposia in Asia and the United States.

Obviously, Clinton has attained a large degree of experience and knowledge across the entirety of his educational and professional career enabling him to successfully head up our deal teams, structure deals and manage both internal and external parties with the primary goal of facilitating successful transactions, providing our clients with a high degree of satisfaction. We are proud to have Clinton as part of our team at Benchmark International. We strive to provide our clients with the best level of service and we believe strongly that Clinton is the best man to achieve that result.

Mr. Smith is co-founder and Managing Partner of the LCG companies.

With its roughly 50 employees throughout the U.S., LCG has facilitated over $3 billion of transactions across a variety of sectors for an array of clients.  As one of the founders and chief architects of LCG’s unique platform, he has successfully led the firm’s growth since its inception through some of the most turbulent economic environments in our nation’s history.

Prior to founding LCG Mr. Smith was a Vice President of Textron Financial Corporation where he managed the underwriting processes for several operating divisions, including the Finance Company Services and Telecom and Energy Lending. While at Textron Mr. Smith completed numerous complex transactions for a variety of finance businesses including asset-based lenders, consumer lenders, media and telecommunications providers, and a myriad of other niche finance companies. Mr. Smith was also appointed by executive management to lead portfolio and operations reviews of other sizable operating divisions .

Prior, he was a principal in New York-based specialty finance company providing financing to health care businesses. Early in his career he held various management positions with a Florida-based firm specializing in commercial finance and mezzanine financing. Mr. Smith is actively involved in numerous industry and civic organizations and is a member of the Board of Fellows at the University of Tampa.