Venable recently represented Boat America Corporation (BoatU.S.) in the sale of its retail boating equipment division, including 62 BoatU.S. stores and catalog and internet equipment sales, to West Marine Products, Inc., a publicly traded company, for $72 million. The stores will retain the BoatU.S. name. As part of the transaction, Boat America entered into a strategic cross-marketing and licensing alliance with West Marine under which West Marine will market to its customers BoatU.S. memberships and marine insurance, and, as part of the BoatU.S. Web site service, BoatU.S. will market West Marine boating equipment.
West Marine and Boat America are two of the largest companies providing boating products and services in the United States. The transaction provides important liquidity for BoatU.S. and the cross-marketing agreement enables BoatU.S. to concentrate its efforts in expanding its profitable membership, marine insurance and towing services. Because of the size of the companies and the transactions, and their relative strength in the boating products market, a Hart-Scott-Rodino application was filed with the FTC.
Mike Flyer and Art Cirulnick led a team of corporate, securities, licensing, real estate and employee benefits lawyers. TheVenable team included Frank Ciatto, Neal Dittersdorf, Jerry O'Conor, Andrea O'Brien, Ed Glynn, Don Creston, Anita Finkelstein, Dale Van Demark, Jeff Quann, Shawn Parish and others.
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