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Mr. Atkins is founder and head of the firm. Mr. Atkins has over 20 years of investment banking experience in mergers and acquisitions, leveraged finance and restructuring and bankruptcy. Mr. Atkins left CIBC World Markets to form Cypress Associates in 2001. At CIBC and its predecessor firm, Oppenheimer & Co., Mr. Atkins was a Managing Director in the Corporate and Leveraged Finance Group, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and fairness opinions. Representative M&A transactions include the sale of Sunnyside Cogeneration to Constellation Power, the sale of Mercom to Cable Michigan, the sale of both Great Lakes Fibre and American Fiber Resources to Cerberus Partners and Oaktree Capital and, as Chairman of the Special Committee of the Board, the sale of Heritage Propane Partners to US Propane. Restructurings include Okeelanta/Osceola Power, Hagerstown Pulp and Paper, CSC Steel, Ramtron International, Robbins Resource Recovery, Mobile Energy Services and Babylon Recycling. Fairness opinions include the squeeze out mergers of Faulding Inc. into Faulding Ltd., General Physics into National Patent, Sew Simple into Alba Waldensian, Petrolane into AmeriGas and Henley Properties into Henley Group. Other affiliated party fairness opinions include the management buyouts of Horsehead Industries and of GPX and the acquisitions of Vision Energy by Ferrellgas and of Advanced Medical Devices by IVAC. Prior to CIBC and Oppenheimer, Mr. Atkins was a Managing Director and Division Head of the New York Investment Banking Group of Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin. At Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Atkins worked on various merger and restructuring assignments including Petrolane Gas Services, Synergy Inc. and JWP. Before Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Atkins was a Managing Director in PaineWebber's Mergers and Acquisitions and Merchant Banking Departments. There he worked on many of the firm's largest M&A transactions, including Campeau Corps' acquisition of Allied Stores and Centaur Partners' bid for Pennwalt. Mr. Atkins also acted as Chairman of the Bondholders Committee in the Federated Department Stores bankruptcy. Mr. Atkins also practiced law at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Mr. Atkins received a B.A. with Highest Honors from the University of Virginia and a J.D. Cum Laude from Harvard Law School. | 