J. Leonard Teti II

J. Leonard Teti II is a partner in Cravath’s Tax Department. His practice focuses on advising clients on the tax aspects of complex mergers and acquisitions, spin‑offs, private equity transactions and bank financings.

Mr. Teti’s clients have included Barnes & Noble, Credit Suisse, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, The Jones Group, JPMorgan Chase, Lindsay Goldberg and Time Warner.

Mr. Teti’s recent transactions include representing:

• Alliant Techsystems in its $985 million acquisition of Bushnell Group Holdings and its $315 million acquisition of Caliber;
• BAE Systems in the sale of its California‑based Safariland business to an acquisition vehicle affiliated with Kanders & Company;
• Barnes & Noble in its strategic partnership with Microsoft Corporation and Pearson in NOOK Media, a recently formed Barnes & Noble subsidiary that develops and markets NOOK eReader devices and related content;
• Continental Energy Systems and Lindsay Goldberg in the $1.135 billion sale of SEMCO to AltaGas;
• Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company, which is a member of the Swire Group, in connection with its approximately $390 million acquisition of TIMCO Aviation Services;
• IBM in acquisitions and dispositions aggregating more than $5.8 billion in value including the acquisitions of Trusteer, DemandTec, Q1 Labs, TRIRIGA, Texas Memory Systems, Green Hat, Vivisimo, Emptoris, OpenPages and Kenexa and the sales of its x86 server business to Lenovo, worldwide customer care business process outsourcing services business to SYNNEX and Retail Store Solutions business to Toshiba;
• Johnson & Johnson in its $19.7 billion acquisition of Synthes;
• JPMorgan Chase in its role as administrative agent on numerous credit facilities;
• Time Warner in its dispositions of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, Time Warner Cable and AOL; and
• Zale Corporation in its pending $1.4 billion acquisition by Signet Jewelers.

Mr. Teti has been recognized for his work in the tax arena byChambers USA from 2010 through 2013 and by The Legal 500 in 2010, 2011 and 2013. He is the co‑author of “FATCA, IGAs and loan agreements,” which was published in the November 2, 2012, issue of the Tax Journal.

Mr. Teti is the President of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Scholars Program and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Princeton Triangle Club.

Mr. Teti was born in Trenton, New Jersey. He received an A.B. with honors in 1999 from Princeton University and a J.D. in 2005 from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the Virginia Law Review, an executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. At Virginia, he was also awarded the Edwin S. Cohen Tax Prize and the Robert E. Goldsten Award for Distinction in the Classroom. He joined Cravath in 2005 and became a partner in 2013.

Mr. Teti can be reached by phone at +1‑212‑474‑1896 or by email at lteti@cravath.com.

Education

• J.D. University of Virginia, 2005, Order of the Coif
• A.B. Princeton University, 1999, with Honors

Organizations

New Jersey Scholars Program

• President, Board of Trustees

Princeton Triangle Club

• Member, Board of Trustees

Professional Recognition

Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business

• Tax - New York (2013‑2010)

The Legal 500 US

• Domestic Tax - East Coast (2013, 2011, 2010)
• International Tax (2013)