For its role as restructuring financial advisor and Chief Restructuring Officer to AgFeed Industries, Mackinac Partners was selected to receive three 2014 awards from The M&A Advisor: International M&A Deal of the Year, Agriculture Deal of the Year and §363 Sale of the Year.

In addition to Mackinac Partners, the deal team consisted of Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor, Business Development Asia and Foley & Lardner.

“Mackinac Partners represents the best of the international M&A industry in 2014 and earned these honors by standing out in a group of very impressive candidates” said David Fergusson, president, The M&A Advisor. “It gives us great pleasure to recognize and bestow upon them our highest honor for cross border M&A firms and professionals.”

“We are very pleased to be recognized by The M&A Advisor for our role in the sales of AgFeed Industries’ US and China operations. These were very complicated distressed sales involving both China and U.S.-based agricultural feed and swine production operations. The circumstances of the sale of the China operations were particularly complex and noteworthy as we believe this is the first ever acquisition by a Chinese company of the Chinese operations of US Chapter 11 debtor,” said Jim Weissenborn, Mackinac Partners’ co-founder and managing partner. “The Mackinac Partners team worked closely with Young, Conaway, BDA and Foley to deliver exceptional results in the orchestration and closing of the sale transactions.”

Keith Maib, who served as chief restructuring officer for AgFeed, co-leads Mackinac’s Financial Restructuring, Transaction Advisory and Private Equity practices.