Steven J. Williams

A partner in the Corporate Department, Steven J. Williams is a member of the firm's Mergers and Acquisitions Group and of its Investment Management transactions practice. Steven has extensive experience with public company transactions, leveraged buy-outs, mergers-of-equals, board representations and special committee representations, as well as with private equity and venture capital transactions, auctions, joint ventures and restructuring transactions. He is active in contested matters, representing both activists and targets in proxy fights, consent solicitations, tender offers and other unsolicited transactions. In addition, as a member of the firm's Investment Management transactions practice, Steven focuses primarily on acquisitions and sales of asset management and other financial services firms.

Experience

Steven's recent transactions include:

• Chambers Street Properties as counsel to the Board of Trustees and in its proposed merger-of-equals with Gramercy Property Trust to create an industrial and office net lease real estate investment trust with combined enterprise value of approximately $5.7 billion;
• Reckitt Benckiser Group plc in its three-year collaboration agreement with the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) for, and related option to acquire, a number of market-leading over-the-counter pharmaceutical brands in Brazil, Mexico and certain other parts of Latin America;
• Spectrum Brands in its acquisition of Armored AutoGroup Parent, Inc., owner of Armor All, SPT and other automotive care brands, for $1.4 billion in cash and assumed debt;
• Tencent Holdings Limited, a leading provider of diversified technology internet services in China, in its proposed going-private acquisition of eLong, Inc., a mobile and online travel service provider in China; and
• The Children's Place, Inc. in its proxy fight and settlement agreement with Barington Capital Group LP and Macellum Advisors LLC.

Other representations by Steven have included:

• Affiliated Managers Group in its majority investment in, and restructuring of, Pantheon Ventures;
• Citigroup in its sale of Nikko Asset Management to The Sumitomo Trust and Banking Co., Ltd.;
• Elliott Management Corporation in its $1.8 billion unsolicited offer for Novell, a leader in intelligent workload management and in Elliott's participation as an equity sponsor in Attachmate's subsequent $2.2 billion acquisition of Novell;
• Elliott Management Corporation in connection with numerous activist campaigns, including its proxy fights for Iron Mountain Incorporated and Hess Corporation, and in settlement agreements with InterPublic Group of Companies Inc. and Citrix Systems, Inc.;
• Elliott Management Corporation in its participation as an equity sponsor in the leveraged buy-outs of Metrologic Instruments Inc., Packeteer Inc., MSC.Software and BMC Software;
• Imperial Sugar Company as special counsel to the Board of Directors and in its sale to Louis Dreyfus Commodities;
• International Strategy & Investment in its acquisition by Evercore;
• Janus Capital Group Inc. in its strategic alliance with The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited, under which Dai-ichi Life agreed to invest $2 billion of its general account assets with Janus and acquire 15 percent to 20 percent of Janus' common stock;
• MasterCard International in its acquisition of Orbiscom Limited, a Dublin, Ireland-based leading payments solutions software provider for major financial institutions;
• Reckitt Benckiser Group plc in its successful $1.4 billion topping bid for, and subsequent successful tender offer for and acquisition of, Schiff Nutrition International, Inc.;
• SAP SE in its acquisition of Concur Technologies, Inc. at an enterprise value of approximately $8.3 billion;
• Spectrum Brands in its acquisition of the European Pet Food division of Proctor & Gamble;
• Tencent Holdings Limited in its investment in Glu Mobile Inc., a global developer and publisher of free-to-play games for smartphone and tablet devices; and
• Tencent Holdings Limited in its investment, together with JD.com, in Bitauto Holdings Limited, a provider of Internet content and marketing services for China's automotive industry.

Steven served as a notes editor of the Columbia Law Review and was a James Kent Scholar and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Steven is the recipient of a Legal Aid Society award for outstanding pro bono representation. Steven serves on the Board of Directors of Education Through Music, Inc., a non-profit that works with New York City schools to develop and sustain school-wide music education programs.

Practices

• Corporate
• Mergers & Acquisitions
  

Education

• J.D., Columbia Law School, 1999
  James Kent Scholar, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar
• M.U.P., New York University, 1994
• B.A., New York University, 1990

Bar Admissions

• New York

See Library Tab for articles, publications and presentations by Steven Williams