Ashok currently serves as managing partner of Reed Smith’s Century City office. His practice focuses on corporate finance, public and private offerings of debt and equity securities, securities regulation, representation of public companies, strategic mergers and acquisitions, and a wide variety of other corporate transactions and general corporate representation. Ashok has experience in corporate transactions in a broad range of industries, including life sciences, gaming and hospitality, entertainment, technology, manufacturing, and medical devices.
Experience
Representative matters
Representative matters
Represented Caribou Biosciences, Inc. in several equity financing transactions, including its $350 million initial public offering of common stock, its $144 million follow-on public offering, and $25 million equity investment from Pfizer Inc, as well as its $115 million Series C preferred stock prior to its initial public offering. Caribou, a clinical-stage CRISPR genome-editing biopharmaceutical company co-founded by pioneers of CRISPR technology including Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna and President & CEO Dr. Rachel Haurwitz, is developing allogeneic, or off-the-shelf, genome-edited CAR-T cell therapy product candidates.
Represented the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and related Academy foundations in connection with offerings of several hundred million dollars of tax-exempt “Oscar Bonds” to finance the construction and development of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment, (formerly a NASDAQ-listed gaming company: PNK), in its acquisition of the operations of the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Pennsylvania from affiliates of Cannery Casino Resorts for total consideration of $138 million and Pinnacle’s lease of the underlying real property from Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc.
Experience
Represented Caribou Biosciences, Inc. in several equity financing transactions, including its $350 million initial public offering of common stock, its $144 million follow-on public offering, and $25 million equity investment from Pfizer Inc, as well as its $115 million Series C preferred stock prior to its initial public offering. Caribou, a clinical-stage CRISPR genome-editing biopharmaceutical company co-founded by pioneers of CRISPR technology including Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna and President & CEO Dr. Rachel Haurwitz, is developing allogeneic, or off-the-shelf, genome-edited CAR-T cell therapy product candidates.
Represented the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and related Academy foundations in connection with offerings of several hundred million dollars of tax-exempt “Oscar Bonds” to finance the construction and development of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment, (formerly a NASDAQ-listed gaming company: PNK), in its acquisition of the operations of the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Pennsylvania from affiliates of Cannery Casino Resorts for total consideration of $138 million and Pinnacle’s lease of the underlying real property from Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc.
Represented Technicolor in its approximately $475 million sale to InterDigital of its patent licensing business, substantially all of its patent portfolio and its interest in a joint licensing program with Sony in the fields of digital TVs and computer display monitors.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment in its $200 million divestiture of its Ameristar Lake Charles casino project to an entity controlled by Golden Nugget Inc. and Tilman Fertitta.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment in its $260 million divestiture of the Lumiere Place Casino, HoteLumiere and the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis to Tropicana Entertainment Inc.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment in numerous high-yield debt offerings totaling over $2 billion and several debt tender offers and follow-on equity public offerings totaling over $740 million.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment in an investment of over $100 million in a joint venture to develop a hotel and casino complex in southern Vietnam.
Represented Guggenheim Securities LLC in connection with a $340 million whole business securitization transaction involving Dick Clark Productions Inc., the producer of such live television programming such as the Golden Globe Awards, the American Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards.
Represented LORAC Cosmetics, a cosmetics brand founded by celebrity makeup artist Carol Shaw, in connection with an investment in the business by Encore Consumer Capital, a private equity firm that invests exclusively in leading consumer products companies.
Represented Cygnus Inc., a publicly held developer and manufacturer of noninvasive glucose monitoring devices, in its asset sale to Animas Corporation and subsequent dissolution.
Represented Pinnacle Entertainment in various other merger and acquisition transactions, including Pinnacle's acquisition of the Sands Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City from entities affiliated with financier Carl Icahn, cash merger acquisition of publicly held Casino Magic Corp., its stock-for-stock merger with publicly held Boomtown and various divestitures of certain of its casinos and racetrack facilities.
Represented Wynn Resorts Ltd. in its $450 million initial public offering and its subsidiary's concurrent $370 million registered high-yield debt offering to finance construction of the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas.
Represented R.D. Hubbard in the proxy contest through which Mr. Hubbard assumed management control of Pinnacle Entertainment (then Hollywood Park).
Recognitions
- Selected through peer review for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© for Corporate Law, 2007-2023
- Named to the Southern California Super Lawyers list, 2007-2010
Credentials
Education
Education
- Harvard Law School, J.D.
- University of California, B.A., Economics
Professional admissions & qualifications
Professional admissions & qualifications
- California
News
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