Hovey Kemp, a retired partner in Goodwin's nationally recognized Private Equity Group, serves leading private equity and venture capital firms and private equity-sponsored growth companies across the country. Mr. Kemp is one of the leaders of Goodwin's interdisciplinary practice focusing on investments in alternative energy and clean technologies. In addition, Mr. Kemp is a member of the firm's Impact and Responsible Investing Practice.
Mr. Kemp, who has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, focuses primarily on private equity and financing transactions in connection with middle-market leveraged buyouts and buildups across a number of industries, including software, information technology, financial services, consumer products, healthcare, education, business services, traditional manufacturing and light industry, as well as the alternative energy and clean technologies sectors. His practice also focuses heavily on mergers and acquisitions, including for a number of public and private technology and other companies which are outside of his private equity practice. His clients include leading private equity firms such as Thoma Bravo, MissionPoint Capital Partners, CIVC Partners and Element Partners. Goodwin's San Francisco-based private equity team also regularly represents firm clients such as TA Associates, JMI Equity, Goldman Sachs and others in connection with their investment activities.
Experience
Mr. Kemp advises private investment funds on the full range of legal work involved in the formation of investment vehicles and the consummation of investments, leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations. A substantial portion of this work is in connection with leveraged buildups in various consolidating industries, where he acts as counsel to private equity funds and their portfolio companies engaged in growth through acquisitions. He also advises his private equity and portfolio company clients in effecting various exit strategies such as mergers, divestitures and public offerings. In addition, having been engaged in the private equity practice since the late 1980s, Mr. Kemp has deep experience in restructuring, recapitalization and reorganization transactions through significant market downturns.
Since moving to Northern California in 2012, Mr. Kemp has been increasingly involved in the firm’s technology company practice, representing numerous earlier and later-stage tech companies in sale transactions.
Representative Matters
- Thoma Bravo in its investments in Infogix, a provider of data analytics solutions to Fortune 100 and Global 2000 companies, Internet Pipeline, a provider of SaaS solutions for the insurance and financial services industries, and SailPoint Technologies, Inc., a provider of identity and access management software solutions
- Thoma Bravo in its original investment in Roadnet Technologies, Inc., a provider of vehicle routing and scheduling software, via a carve-out from UPS, and the subsequent sale of Roadnet to Omnitracs LLC, an affiliate of Vista Equity Partners
- Thoma Bravo in its original investment in Telestream, Inc., an innovative digital video company that is a pioneer in file-based video transcoding and high-quality media exchanges over IP networks, and the subsequent sale of Telestream to an affiliate of Genstar Capital
- Cyara Solutions Pty Ltd., an Australia-based provider of automated customer experience, testing and monitoring software platforms, in a growth equity investment led by funds affliated with PeakSpan Capital
- Two of the founders and significant shareholders of Barracuda Networks in connection with its pre-IPO recapitalization by Sequoia Capital and Francisco Partners
- SimplyShe, a lifestyle product company providing fashion-based merchandise to both specialty and mass market retailers, in its sale to an affiliate of Harren Equity Partners
- CIVC Partners in its investment in Pacific Crest Securities, a premier technology industry investment bank, trading and research firm
- Zendesk, a San Francisco-based public software company specializing in customer service and engagement solutions, in its acquisition of Montpellier, France-based We Are Cloud, SAS, and its cloud-based data analytics software platform known as BIME Analytics, in exchange for cash consideration and key employee equity incentive retention arrangements
- HealthPocket, a technology company that aggregates government, non-profit and private health insurance data for the comparison and ranking of health insurance plans for consumers, in its sale to Health Insurance Innovations, Inc.
- Pretty Simple Solutions (dba TruEquity), a provider of capital structure and equity ownership management software, in its sale of assets to ExactEquity, LLC, an affiliate of Nasdaq Private Markets
- MobileSpan, a startup that enables enterprise employees to securely access corporate content located behind a firewall, in its sale to Dropbox
- Bufferbox, a Canadian startup that leverages parcel kiosks to provide consumers the convenience of picking up their online purchases 24/7, in its sale to Google
- HomeGain.com, Inc., a portfolio company of Classified Ventures, in its sale to Reply.com
- Global Imaging Systems in its sale to Xerox for over $1.5 billion
- Umicore, a Brussels-based, multinational specialty metals, advanced materials and specialty chemicals company, in numerous acquisitions of U.S.-based businesses
- Sun Edison, and its institutional investors and other shareholders in the sale of the country’s leading solar energy developer to MEMC Electronic Materials for over $200 million with an earnout
- Element Partners in its investment in Agility Fuel Systems, the leading designer and producer of compressed and liquid natural gas fuel storage and delivery systems for heavy duty trucks, buses and specialty vehicles
- Turning Earth, LLC in its financings to develop a plant using anaerobic digestion technology to provide organics recycling to Connecticut municipalities and businesses
- MissionPoint Capital Partners in its investments in AeroFarms, an urban agriculture company, and in many of its other investments, including Hannon Armstrong, Trilliant, Upwind Solutions, and RE Community Holdings.
- Agility Fuel Systems in various commercial arrangements with suppliers, distributors and original equipment manufacturers
Professional Experience
Prior to joining Goodwin in 2006, Mr. Kemp was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Hogan Lovells. He relocated from Goodwin’s D.C. office to its San Francisco office in 2012.
Credentials
Education
JD1980
Georgetown University
Artium Baccalaureus1976
Harvard College
(magna cum laude)
Admissions
Bars
- California
- District of Columbia
- Colorado
Recognition & Awards
Mr. Kemp has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and The Legal 500 United States.