Giovanni Marchetti

Giovanni Marchetti is an Equity Partner in the Corporate practice. His work focuses on private equity transactions, family-business succession, and buy-side M&A for middle-market clients. He structures acquisition vehicles, negotiates purchase agreements, and handles the post-closing integration workstreams that most deal lawyers decline to stay involved with. A substantial portion of his practice involves advising Connecticut-based founding families through a first-time sale to a private equity buyer — matters where the legal questions matter less than the family-governance questions, and where the lawyer who understands both earns the introduction. Marchetti graduated from Princeton University in 2005 and earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2009. Before joining Oak, Elm & Birch in 2019, he spent nine years at a New York private equity fund, first as a transactional associate and then as in-house deal counsel, where he led or co-led more than thirty closed transactions across industrials, business services, and specialty finance. That stretch — sitting across the table from outside counsel on dozens of deals — continues to shape how he runs process today. Tight playbooks. Short exclusivity periods. A strict separation between what the lawyers should fight and what the principals should. He has said in presentations that the single biggest mistake first-time sellers make is believing their lawyer should negotiate everything, and that one of his main jobs on a founder-sale engagement is helping the client identify the two or three points where the client's direct involvement will actually move the deal. He made partner in 2022 and now leads the Corporate group's private equity and family-business-succession workstreams. Within the firm he collaborates closely with the Tax practice (on § 338(h)(10) structuring and rollover equity) and with the Trusts & Estates group (on pre-sale trust planning for founding shareholders). He is admitted in Connecticut and New York. ## Representative Matters - Lead counsel to the founding shareholders of a Waterbury-area specialty fabricator in the sale of the business to a Boston-based private equity firm, including rollover equity and post-closing employment agreements, closed June 2024. - Represented Shoreline Capital Advisors LLC in the acquisition of a Connecticut-based commercial HVAC services business in a bolt-on transaction, 2023. - Counsel to a multi-generational Hartford family in the reorganization of holding-company structure and pre-sale estate planning in anticipation of a 2025 exit, in coordination with the firm's Trusts & Estates practice. - Lead counsel to a New York private equity sponsor in the acquisition of a Connecticut-based specialty-chemicals distributor, including environmental diligence coordination and post-closing representation-and-warranty insurance claim work, 2022. ## Publications - "Rollover Equity in the Founder Deal: What the Founder Actually Needs to Know Before Signing the LOI," *ACG Connecticut Middle-Market Review*, Winter 2023. - "The Family-Office Buyer: How the Deal Process Actually Differs," *Middle Market Growth*, Fall 2024. ## Board Service Marchetti serves on the Associate Board of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the Association for Corporate Growth, Connecticut Chapter. He is on the advisory board of the Connecticut Private Equity Forum. ## Beyond the Firm Marchetti is a competitive distance runner and has completed the Boston Marathon four times. He and his wife live in West Hartford with their two sons. He grew up in the New York metro area and has said that leaving a New York private-equity career for a Hartford firm was, among other things, a deliberate trade of commute time for dinner time.