Jeffrey D. Marell

A partner in the Corporate Department, Jeff is the co-head of the firm’s North American Mergers and Acquisitions Practice and a member of its Private Equity Group. Jeff is a nationally recognized transactional lawyer who focuses on a range of corporate matters. He has extensive experience representing strategic, private equity and hedge fund clients in the full spectrum of public and private merger and acquisition transactions, including negotiated and contested acquisitions and divestitures, minority investments and carve-out transactions. Jeff’s public company experience also includes numerous proxy contests and special committee assignments.

Experience

Jeff's public company representations include:

• Platform Specialty Products Corporation  in its $2.3 billion acquisition by way of a U.K. scheme of arrangement of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Alent;
• Simon Property Group, Inc.  in its joint venture focused on credit tenant, net-leased and multi-tenanted retail buildings with Hudson's Bay Company;
• Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc.  in its $1.4 billion acquisition of the Hardware & Home Improvement Group of Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.; and in the separate acquisitions of Tell Manufacturing, Inc. and Procter & Gamble's European pet food business;
• Ericsson in its global business and technology alliance with Cisco; its acquisition of Nortel Networks's CDMA and LTE businesses for $1.13 billion; and in its separate acquisitions of Envivio, Inc., Apcera, Inc., Azuki Systems, Inc., MetraTech and Ambient Corp.;
• Great Wolf Resorts, Inc.  in its sale to an affiliate of Apollo Global Management, LLC for approximately $798 million, including the assumption of the company's outstanding debt, through a cash tender offer;
• The Special Committee of Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. in a merger between Winn-Dixie and BI-LO LLC in which BI-LO, a portfolio company of Lone Star Funds, will acquire Winn-Dixie in a transaction valued at approximately $560 million;
• Wendy's/Arby's Group's sale of its Arby's Restaurant Group to Roark Capital; and
• Triarc Companies, Inc.'s $2.34 billion acquisition of Wendy's International.

Jeff's private equity and private company assignment representations include:

• John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods in its sale of approximately 7,400 controlled lots and 280 homes in backlog to PulteGroup, Inc. The purchase price of the transaction is approximately $430 million to $450 million;
• Orleans Homes in the $166 million sale of its Charlotte, Raleigh and Chicago operations and homebuilding assets to Taylor Morrison Home Corporation; and in its sale of more than 450 homes and buildable home sites to Lennar Corporation;
  
• DE Spirits, LLC and Eliza Spring, LLC in the sale of Deep Eddy Vodka and its distillery to Heaven Hill Brands;
• Pabst Brewing Company in its sale to a consortium comprised of Oasis Beverages and TSG Consumer Partners;
• Dominion Homes, one of the largest home builders in Columbus, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, in the sale of its real estate portfolio and related assets to PulteGroup, Inc.;
• Preferred Sands in connection with a $680 million debt and minority equity investment in 2014 by affiliates of KKR, to recapitalize Preferred; and in a recapitalization in connection with its 2012 acquisition of nearly all of the assets of Winn Bay Sand, creating one of the largest North American frac sand producers. Paul, Weiss was "commended" for our work on this transaction by the Financial Times in the "enabling clients business" category of the 2015 FT Innovative awards;
• Autocam Corporation, a Michigan-based leader in the engineering, manufacturing and assembly of system critical components for fuel systems, engines and transmission, power steering and electric motors, in its $300 million sale to NN, Inc.;
• The Carlyle Group in its investment in Bonotel Exclusive Travel, a luxury inbound tour operator;
• The buyer group in its acquisition of the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League;
• InterMedia Partners in the creation of Hemisphere Media Group, a publicly traded media company targeting Hispanic TV/cable networks, including Hemisphere's acquisition of the Pasiones, Centroamerica TV and TV Dominicana cable networks;
• InterMedia Outdoors Holdings, Inc. and The Sportsman Channel, Inc. in their $400 million sale to Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, LLC;
• Meritage Group LP in its acquisition of CoHo Distributing LLC, the second-largest distributor in the MillerCoors beer distribution system; and
• Combination of Virtu Financial and Madison Tyler Holdings, both technology-driven proprietary trading and market making firms, along with a strategic growth investment in support of the transaction by Silver Lake Partners;

Jeff's work has earned him recognition as a leading M&A lawyer in the United States by Chambers and The Legal 500. He was featured in April 2011 on This Week in the Boardroom discussing "love letter" takeovers and has also participated in numerous M&A and private equity conferences as well as CLE courses. Jeff participated on the panel "A Discussion with the Dealmakers" at the Practising Law Institute's Delaware Law Developments 2015. Additionally, he has co-authored two articles published in The Deal magazine titled "The Fine Print" and "In Search of Certainty: New, Limited Optionality in M&A Deals."

Jeff was a member of the George Washington Law Review.

Practices

• Corporate
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Private Equity Transactions
  

Education

• J.D., George Washington University Law School, 1993
  High Honors
• B.A., Colgate University, 1990
  cum laude

Bar Admissions

• New York
• New Jersey

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