Bio

M. Ridgway Barker is a partner in our corporate team. As a trusted advisor for small to medium-sized domestic and international public and private companies and family offices across a whole range of legal issues and business needs, he regularly represents clients on both highly complex, sensitive, and confidential matters as well as routine day-to-day needs. He also has broad experience in a variety of financial, accounting, and supervisory roles involving corporate finance, corporate and strategic transactions, and development activities, executive compensation, operations, and corporate governance. Ridge’s clients span a wide range of industries, including telecommunications, technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, manufacturing, financial services, and retail. Ridge’s transactional work ranges from opportunity creation, investigation, and development through structuring, analysis, negotiation, problem-solving, closing, and post-transaction implementation. He uses total quality and project management concepts to maximize transaction values and minimize transaction costs. Ridge is actively engaged in the full range of business, corporate, securities and capital market, and cryptocurrency and blockchain legal, advisory and transactional matters, including IPOs and other registered offerings, SPACs, Rule 144A / Regulation S / Regulation A offerings, private placements, asset securitizations, token analysis and structuring, token distribution, credit facilities, and debt financings, stock and asset M&A transactions, divestitures and spin-offs, recapitalizations, joint ventures, partnership transactions, forward purchase and sale transactions, corporate and family office governance, private equity, and venture capital formation and investment, equity and executive compensation, broker-dealer and investment adviser registration and regulation, public disclosure and reporting, corporate and regulatory compliance, internal and regulatory investigations, and corporate control litigation, among other areas. Ridge is frequently featured in notable business news outlets and publications, including Reuters, Mergermarket, Cointelegraph, and Spears, and has authored and co-authored books and articles on corporate, securities, and technology topics including (but not limited to) Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Digital Assets, and SPACs. Before joining Withers, Ridge was a Partner at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, a New York-based international law firm, where he was the Chairman of the Corporate Finance & Securities Practice Group.