Current Employment Position(s)

Partner

Lawyer Overview

Mr. Bluhm's practice comprises handling clients' business transactions and providing legal advice on clients’ business matters. He possesses a broad range of expertise involving (i) stock and asset acquisitions and dispositions; (ii) corporate and general business matters, including strategic alliances, equity capital investments, new business formations and financing; and (iii) banking law, including regulatory matters and loan transactions for both lenders and borrowers.

A few of the transactions in which Mark has been involved include:

• Represented several buyers and sellers the past couple years in multiple acquisitions and divestitures utilizing an auction sale process. 
• Represented BlueScope Steel North America Corporation in several recent acquisitions. 
• Represented the stockholders of Ivy Animal Health, Inc. in their sale of the company to Eli Lilly and Company. 
• Represented Sprint PCS in structuring its PCS Affiliate Program and negotiating management, services and license agreements with companies to build-out and operate Sprint PCS networks in specific geographic regions. 
• Represented Sprint PCS in obtaining financing for its PCS Affiliates, including syndicated senior secured financing, subordinated debt and public offerings of equity and high yield bonds, aggregating more than $3 billion. 
• Represented Sprint PCS in its swaps of FCC spectrum licenses with AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile. 
• Represented Sprint Spectrum Holding Company, L.P. in its acquisition of a partnership that holds a broadband personal communications services license for the Washington, D.C./Baltimore major trading area, and in the subsequent sale of the GSM System owned by that partnership to Omnipoint Corporation (a predecessor of T-Mobile). 
• Represented a DST Systems, Inc. subsidiary in negotiating agreements with corporate transfer agents to provide their corporate customers the ability to distribute proxy material over the Internet and to receive electronic voting from their shareholders. 
• Supervised and handled the sale, liquidation or other disposition of 17 subsidiaries of Franklin Savings Association during the three-year period after the Resolution Trust Corporation was appointed Franklin's conservator. 
• Represented the shareholders of Russell Stover Candies, Inc. in their acquisition of Whitman's Candies from Pet Incorporated. 
• Represented several companies and individuals in their investments in unaffiliated businesses. 
• Represented client in successful hostile tender offer to acquire a bank, and represented another client in hostile proxy fight in attempt to control Board of Directors of a publicly owned real estate investment trust.

Areas of Practice

• Telecommunications
• Corporate & General Business
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Corporate Finance & Securities
• Corporate Governance
• Strategic Alliances
• Financial Institutions

West Practice Categories

Banking & Finance Law, Business & Commercial Law

Bar Admissions

• Missouri, 1980

Professional Associations and Memberships

• Norbank, Former Member of the Board of Directors
• Children's Center for the Visually Impaired, Former Member of the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors
• The Children's Place, Former Member of the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors
• The Bacchus Foundation, Past President and Former Member of the Board of Directors
• Kansas City Tomorrow, Year VIII Member

Honors and Awards

• Selected among The Best Lawyers in America®, 2010
• Selected for Missouri/Kansas Super Lawyers, 2005-2009
• Master of Business Administration Scholar Award (awarded annually by the Washington University MBA Faculty), 1978
• Martindale-Hubbell® "AV" Rating

Education

• Washington University School of Law, 1980
  J.D.
• Washington University in St. Louis, 1980
  M.B.A.
• Stanford University, 1976
  A.B.

Published Works

• 56 Lathrop & Gage Attorneys Named Best Lawyers in America, 2009
• 52 Lathrop & Gage Attorneys Named Super Lawyers, 2008
• 45 Lathrop & Gage Attorneys Named Super Lawyers, 2007
• Recent Honors for Lathrop & Gage Attorneys - Litigation Insert No. 5 - Fall 2006, 2006
• Lathrop & Gage Announces New Executive Committee Members, 2006
• 30 Lathrop & Gage Attorneys Named Super Lawyers, 2005
• Lathrop & Gage Announces New Executive Committee Members, 2004

Address

2345 Grand Blvd.
Suite 2800
Kansas City, MO 64108

Phones

(816) 460-5829 (Business Phone)

Faxes

(816) 292-2001 (Business Fax)

Emails

Contact Us (Business Email)

Websites

http://www.lathropgage.com/