Fred Stein

Established CLO role for business consulting and investment management firm that helps small and medium-sized businesses scale to achieve outstanding growth. We offer a suite of business services, including business education workshops, consulting services, and business formatting, along with debt and equity investments. A notable early-stage investment is 10X Health, a portfolio company emerging as a global leader in precision health solutions. With a robust legal background, I provide in-the-moment, solution-oriented advice to the company, business units and leadership on a wide range of governance and transactional issues, supporting business objectives with velocity while remaining compliant: - Contract and Deal Support: Ensure favorable terms and minimize legal risk by creating a library of templates, standing up a contract lifecycle management solution, and supporting and negotiating a wide variety of transactions and strategic relationships, including M&A, joint ventures, licenses, SaaS, vendor agreements, and other contracts. - Intellectual Property: Oversee the company's IP portfolio, including trademarks and copyrights, and defend and enforce IP rights. - International: Assist with international expansion activities, including investment opportunities and cross-border transactions. - Real Estate: Handle negotiations through closing and beyond, relating to company's real estate leases and acquisitions. - Litigation: Prosecute, defend, and successfully resolve complex dispute resolution matters, involving IP, fiduciary duty, contract, fraud, and non-competition claims. - Employment: Provide practical guidance on employment law issues. - Compliance and Risk Management: Perform risk assessment, develop and implement risk management and compliance program, guide data strategies, assist with internal investigations, and manage insurance coverage and claims. - Government and Regulatory Affairs: Monitor and advise on regulatory and legislative developments.

Assumed the role of CLO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ: CSSE) upon CSSE's acquisition of Redbox (NASDAQ: RDBX). CSSE owned and operated Redbox, Crackle, Screen Media, Popcornflix, A-Plus, Halcyon Entertainment, and Landmark Studios Group.

I helped shepherd Redbox through the IPO process after 5 years of private equity ownership (Apollo Global Management: APO).

I provided strategic counsel on complex legal, regulatory, risk management, and government affairs issues. Fareportal is the largest U.S. flight-focused online travel agent, with multiple B2C and B2B brands in several countries, partnering with over 600 airlines, 1 million hotels, and hundreds of car rental agencies. Pre-COVID revenue of $5 billion, with 2,600+ employees in the U.S., India, Canada, Mexico, and U.K.

I established and scaled the legal and compliance function at this hyper-growth company, and managed its insurance, risk, claims, loss prevention, security, and facilities functions at different points in its life span. I helped expand operations into Canada, and later helped carve-out Redbox from public-company parent (NASDAQ: OUTR). Redbox was a North American entertainment distributor and retailer specializing in DVD, Blu-ray, and video game rentals and sales via 40,000 automated retail kiosks and digital content distribution via multi-platform “on demand” and free live TV offerings. It was a bona fide fast-growth company, with annual revenue approaching $1 billion within first five years.

Helped manage and oversee Redbox Tickets™, a scalable, yield management platform, allowing promoters, venues, and ticketing systems to allocate and sell live event tickets via Redbox kiosks and the web. Streamlined and reconceptualized B2B sales-to-contract process, resulting in easy to understand business and legal terms that promoted trust, reduced cycle time, increased revenue and lowered legal costs. Invaluable experience as a client of my own legal team's services.

I created the legal department for this group of long-time clients (from 1997-2006) providing turnkey, integrated ATM deployment/maintenance, cash-in-transit and cash management solutions. Post private equity rollup, the company had 2,800 employees servicing 100,000 transaction terminals at 2,000 national, regional, and community banks, major retailers and c-store chains, and gaming establishments. I crafted reseller agreements with first-tier equipment manufacturers (like NCR) and authored tri-party branding and chain-wide deployment agreements with major financial institutions and leading c-store/grocery chains. I managed a 12-person security/compliance/claims team, along with related investigation and loss recovery efforts.

Private practitioner, including with premiere litigation boutique made up of nationally known litigators, former state and federal judges, prosecutors, and House ethics counsel. Developed deep expertise in complex insurance and reinsurance issues. Litigated and arbitrated disputes, at both the trial and appellate levels, involving public and private entities, Fortune 500 companies and individuals, in state and federal courts across the country, including breaches of contract, business torts, product liability claims, partnership disputes and TRO hearings. Also counseled clients on a wide range of business matters, including acquisitions, business formations, asset-based lending transactions, distributor and sales representative relationships, employment-related issues, and contract matters.

Drafted memoranda, opinions and orders. Conducted legal research and drafted proposed findings of fact for trials involving IP infringement, civil rights violations, loan fraud and other issues.

Collegeville, MN