KRG Capital Partners Acquires Allied Research

On March 14, 2007, Contract Research Solutions (doing business as Cetero Research) acquired Allied Research International Inc. Headquartered in Toronto, Allied has been providing contract research services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries since 1989. Cetero Research, a portfolio company of KRG Capital Partners, LLC and Summit Partners, is a leading contract research organization.

Legal representation of Cetero Research, on both the acquisition and the financing, was provided by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team comprised of John Leopold, Peter Castiel, Sophie Lamonde, Andrea Cleven, Stephanie Raymond-Bougie and Marie-Hélène Cormier (corporate), Robert Hogan and Frank Mathieu (tax), Howard Rosenoff, Marie Garneau, Gwen Cheung and Yousef Rehman (financing), Andrew Elliott and Zoe Kalmanson (real estate), Larry Cobb (environment), Patrick Essiminy and Stephanie Weschler (employment), Michel Legendre (pension and benefits) and Justine Whitehead and Ryan Sheahan (regulatory). Legal representation of Cetero Research in the United States was provided by Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP with a team comprised of William Simpson, Michael McKinnon, Peggy Fu and Kevin Morriss (corporate), Alexander Lee (tax), Catherine Patton and Lindsay Sparks (financing) and John Schafer (real estate).

The shareholders of Allied were represented by Aird & Berlis LLP with a team that included Jay A. Lefton, Richard M. Kimel, Susan R. Pak and Lisa M. Angeli (corporate), Randy T. Hooke (real estate) Barbra H. Miller (employment) and Jill P. Fraser (financing). Legal representation of the shareholders in the United States was provided by Cooley Godward Kronish LLP with a team comprised of Adam Salassi and Ryan Naftulin (corporate) and by Akerman Senterfitt as local counsel with a team comprised of Eric Rapkin (real estate), Jahan Islami (corporate) and Carmen Johnson (employment). Financial advisors to the shareholders were Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC (now Giuliani Capital Advisors, and doing business as Macquarie Securities (USA) Inc.) represented by Derek Gustafson, Bryan Brown and former employee Les Granow and KPMG represented by Edward Bartucci, David Cook, Theodore Spevick, Evy Moskowitz and Theo Michalarias.

Financing for this transaction was provided by Freeport Financial LLC, as US agent and lead arranger, Bank of Montreal, as Canadian agent, Merrill Lynch Capital, a Division of Merrill Lynch Business Financial Services Inc., as documentation agent and General Electric Capital Corporation, as syndication agent. The lenders were represented by Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt LLP in Canada with a team comprised of Scott Horner, Keith Lau and Charles Zenius (financing), Rod Davidge and Janet Lee (real estate), Greg Wylie (tax) and Evan Howard (pensions) and in the United States by Latham & Watkins LLP with a team comprised of James Doran, Daniel Stolarsky and Allison O'Neill (financing).