ExecutiveBiographies

James Lucas, based in California, provides investor relations and corporate PR services to clients that range from technology to manufacturing to financial services companies.  He has extensive experience with the communications support of mergers and acquisitions, corporate crises, restructurings, securities offerings, corporate control and proxy matters and corporate responses to activist investors.
Representative recent clients have included:

• Adobe: provided communications support during the pending $1.8-billion acquisition of Omniture and the $3.4-billion acquisition of MacroMedia.
• Avery Dennison: assignments since 2000 have ranged for investor-relations consulting to communications support during acquisitions.
• Baker Hughes: provided communications support during its $5.5-billion acquisition of BJ Services in 2009, as well as support since 2001 in litigation and other events.
• Broadcom: recent projects included support of an unsolicited acquisition proposal.
• Farmer Bros. Co.: assignments since 2001 have ranged from routine investor-relations support to support in governance matters.
• McAfee: assignments included providing investor-relations and corporate PR support amid an inquiry into stock-options backdating, several acquisitions, management transitions, and earnings reporting.
• Schnitzer Steel Industries: various investor-relations and corporate PR assignments, beginning with support for a corporate restructuring in 2006.
• Sterling Financial Corp.: provided communications support as Sterling emerged as the largest independent bank in the Northwest and announced management changes and regulatory actions.

Mr. Lucas joined The Abernathy MacGregor Group in 2000 after operating, for six years, his investor relations and corporate PR consulting business in Santa Monica that focused on medical and technology clients. Before that, he led communications functions at Health Net, one of the largest HMOs, and Maxicare Health Plans, then the largest publicly traded HMO company.
He is active in the National Investor Relations Institute, having served three terms as the Los Angeles Chapter’s president and more than 10 years on its board. He has worked with various non-profits, including the American Heart Association. He began his career as a daily newspaper reporter and is a graduate of Kenyon College and Duke University.