Craig Garner is a corporate partner with extensive experience representing companies in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, and a broad range of general corporate and securities matters. Craig serves as primary outside counsel for a number of public and private companies and regularly advises boards of directors and special committees in complex strategic transactions and corporate governance matters.

Craig leads the San Diego Mergers & Acquisitions Practice. He has been recognized as a leading lawyer, and named among the top 100 influential leaders in San Diego, by numerous legal publications.

Craig successfully advises public and private companies in complex strategic transactions, including:

  • Public and private offerings
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Joint ventures
  • Going private transactions
  • Shareholder activism and takeover defense planning

Craig regularly lectures on a variety of M&A and securities law topics. He also co-authors the Annual Meeting Handbook, which is published annually and distributed nationwide.

Craig's experience includes representing:

  • AeroVironment in connection with its US$100 million IPO
  • BioMed Realty Trust in connection with its US$400 million IPO, follow-on offerings of equity and debt raising more than US$1 billion, acquisition of Wexford Science & Technology and US$8 billion sale to The Blackstone Group
  • Bridge Investment Group in connection with its US$300 million IPO, and acquisitions of Gorelick Brothers Capital and Newbury Partners
  • Callaway Golf in connection with its follow-on offerings of equity and debt raising more than US$250 million, and acquisitions of Ogio, TravisMathew, Jack Wolfskin, BigShots Golf and Topgolf
  • Essex Property Trust in connection with its follow-on offerings of equity and debt raising more than US$1 billion
  • Excel Trust in connection with its US$200 million IPO, follow-on offerings of equity and debt raising more than US$500 million, and US$2 billion sale to The Blackstone Group
  • Extra Space Storage in connection with its follow-on offerings of equity and debt raising more than US$1 billion, US$1.4 billion acquisition of SmartStop Self Storage, and US$47 billion merger with Life Storage
  • FivePoint in connection with its strategic combination to form FivePoint Holdings, the largest developer of mixed-use communities in coastal California
  • Huntsman Family Investments in connection with its acquisition of GTA TeleGuam
  • Pulse Electronics in connection with its sale to Oaktree Capital Management
  • Rapid Bridge in connection with its sale to Qualcomm
  • SkyWest Airlines in connection with its capital raising transactions of more than US$1 billion and sale of ExpressJet to United Airlines joint venture
  • Viasat in connection with its IPO, follow-on offerings of equity and debt raising more than US$1 billion, acquisitions of Inmarsat, RigNet, NetNearU, US Monolithics, Efficient Channel Coding, Enerdyne Technologies, Intelligent Compression Technologies, Stonewood Group Limited, and WildBlue Communications, and sale of its Link 16 TDL business for US$2 billion
  • Zhone Technologies in connection with its acquisitions of DASAN Network Solutions, Tellium, Premisys Communications, Sorrento Networks, Gluon Networks, Paradyne Networks, NEC Eluminant Technologies, and a division of Nortel Networks

Bar Qualification

  • California

Education

  • BS, University of California, Berkeley
  • JD, Stanford Law School