Kristen Centre
Senior Counsel
Overview
Kristen Centre is a business attorney in Holland & Knight's Stamford office. Ms. Centre represents private companies and private equity firms in a wide variety of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions, including acquisitions and investments, carve-outs and dispositions. She represents financial institutions, private equity firms and funds and corporate borrowers in finance transactions, including secured and unsecured lending and acquisition financings.
As part of her venture capital practice, Ms. Centre represents high-potential, growth companies and lead investors in venture capital financings, including series seed and Series A preferred stock financings and convertible note financings. She also regularly advises startups and emerging companies throughout all stages of their life cycles and assists executives of small, mid-size and large companies in the nonprofit and private sectors with general corporate and governance matters.
In addition to her corporate practice, Ms. Centre has extensive experience representing charitable organizations and private foundations on a variety of transactional matters, including assistance with incorporation and obtaining 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, negotiating fiscal sponsorship and other complex arrangements with partnering nonprofits, and counseling board members and senior management on compliance issues and charitable registration and reporting requirements.
Ms. Centre also has experience advising debtors, creditors, equity holders and other interested parties in all aspects of distressed situations, including bankruptcy and restructuring matters.
Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Ms. Centre was an attorney at a global law firm's New York City office and a boutique corporate law firm based in Westport, Connecticut.
Representative Experience
- Represented a client as buyer in the acquisition of a majority of the equity of Florida One Insurance Agency LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; the transaction involved a sophisticated pre-closing reorganization
- Represented a client as buyer in the acquisition of all of the equity of The Benefits Group of Haudenschield, Harrison and Blachek, LLC, an insurance brokerage company
- Represented a client as buyer in the acquisition of all of the equity of IPA 18 LLC, an insurance brokerage company
- Represented client as a buyer in the acquisition of all of the equity of an insurance brokerage company
- Represented client as a buyer in the acquisition of all of the equity of an insurance and payment processing company
- Represented client as a buyer in the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of an insurance brokerage company
- Represented a software company that makes Salesforce-native apps as company's counsel in the issuance of series seed preferred stock in the principal amount of $100,000 to an angel investor and, in tandem, as borrower's counsel in negotiating a $15 million secured term loan made to two national private investment firms
- Represented a global executive search firm in the strategic acquisition of the assets of a corporate culture consulting firm; purchase price was approximately $30 million
- Represented a global private equity firm as lender's counsel in negotiating a $20 million secured term loan made to a leading technology and infrastructure cannabis company
- Represented a juice franchise based on the U.S. west coast in a merger with another juice and wellness company, making the newly branded business one the largest certified-organic, locally sourced, cold-pressed juice companies in California
- Represented a premier art media company in the sale of its art magazine publishing business to a leading digital media corporation
- Represented an aerobics dance company in the offering, sale and issuance of convertible promissory notes in the aggregate principal amount of approximately $2.5 million
- Regularly represents one of the largest distributors of automotive and truck parts to the aftermarket auto parts industry in the purchase of add-on businesses
- Represented a developer of customer outcome management software solutions in the $100 million sale of its company to a financial sponsor
- Represented a gambling casino in a Chapter 11 proceeding; restructured claims and liabilities were approximately $1.5 billion
- Represented a leading provider of portable sanitation services in the acquisition of four subsidiaries in less than two years
- Represented a luxury specialty retailer with flagship stores in New York City in a fully consensual out-of-court restructuring that reduced the company's long-term outstanding indebtedness from more than $590 million to $50 million
- Represented a leading retailer of trend-right women's fashions that operated more than 400 retail stores nationwide in a Section 363 bankruptcy sale, allowing the company to exit unprofitable store locations
- Represented a direct-sales marketing company in the health and wellness industry with aggregate indebtedness of approximately $295 million in a successful out-of-court restructuring
- Represented a large brewery in negotiating a note purchase agreement with the company's founders and equity owners
- Represented a charitable organization that provides therapy services to children in negotiating a partnership agreement with another nonprofit that offers music programs to children in hospitals
- Assisted numerous startup nonprofits, including a modern ballet company and an organization that offers therapeutic horsemanship services to disabled individuals, in incorporating, drafting bylaws and other core corporate governance documents and obtaining federal tax-exempt status
Credentials
- Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, J.D., cum laude
- Cornell University, B.S.
- Connecticut
- New Jersey
- New York
- Association of Corporate Growth (ACG), New York Chapter, Women of Leadership Committee, 2023-Present
- Exponent, June 2022-Present
- Ellevate Network, Fairfield/Westchester County Chapter Co-President, July 2020-Present
- East Coast Contemporary Ballet Company, Founding Board Member, 2019-Present
- Top 25 Women in M&A, Opus Connect, 2023