Neil Grayson, a partner with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, has a corporate practice focused on securities, mergers and acquisitions, bank regulatory, and corporate governance matters, with an emphasis in three overlapping areas:
- Community banks and other financial services companies
- Emerging growth companies and private equity funds
- Public companies and established private companies in the Southeast
Mr. Grayson advises clients on matters related to corporate governance, securities compliance and reporting requirements, going private transactions, exchange listing standards, joint ventures, acquisitions, divestitures, private equity, and debt and equity offerings.
He has extensive experience in corporate governance matters, securities compliance for public companies and corporate transactions, and corporate finance. Mr. Grayson devotes a significant portion of his practice to counseling public companies about compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and related SEC regulations.
Mr. Grayson began his legal career by working from 1987 to 1991 with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York and then for 12 years in our Atlanta office. He is a member of the South Carolina Bar, the State Bar of Georgia, and the New York State Bar. He now resides in Greenville, but also continues to maintain an Atlanta office.
Mr. Grayson has handled more than 50 public offerings and hundreds of private placements of securities while with Nelson Mullins. He has also handled more than 30 new bank formations and approximately 50 mergers or other acquisitions. He has worked with banks and bank holding companies throughout the Southeast, including in every state from Maryland to Florida to Mississippi. Since he returned home to South Carolina from Atlanta in 2003, Mr. Grayson has handled well over half of the new bank formations, public company mergers, and public securities offerings in South Carolina.
Mr. Grayson serves on the faculty of the South Carolina Bank Directors’ College, where he lectures on the role of a bank director. He also serves on the board of directors of the South Carolina Student Loan Corporation.
While in Atlanta, Mr. Grayson founded the Entrepreneurs Foundation of the Southeast, a not-for-profit organization that works closely with the venture capital community and their portfolio companies. When he moved to South Carolina, Mr. Grayson helped to establish the Greenville chapter of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which won international recognition from YEO as the best new YEO chapter in 2004, and he has worked with the South Carolina Department of Commerce in implementing the South Carolina Venture Capital Act. Mr. Grayson lectures and has written on a variety of issues regarding banking, mergers and acquisitions, and securities law. He is a member of the American Bar Association and its Corporate Banking and Business Law Sections.
Mr. Grayson has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America each year since 2006. In addition, since 2005, Mr. Grayson has been recognized in the Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business publication for his experience in Corporate/Mergers and Acquisitions. As stated in the 2005 version of the publication, “Recently relocated from the group’s Atlanta banking practice, Neil Grayson is endorsed for his finesse with public offerings and banking work. He also works in the venture capital area, where industry sources say ‘he knows his field and he’s easy to work with.’”
In 1987, Mr. Grayson earned a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of South Carolina School of Law where he was named to The Order of the Coif and the Order of the Wig and Robe. He was also a member of the South Carolina Law Review, the Moot Court Bar, and the International Law Moot Court Team. Mr. Grayson earned a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Accounting and Economics, cum laude, from Wofford College in 1984.
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