Steven A. Rosenblum is continuing an active practice as Of Counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, after serving as a Partner of the firm from 1989 through 2025 and as Co-Chair of the firm’s Corporate Department from 2010 through 2025. He focuses on mergers and acquisitions, takeover defense, corporate governance, shareholder and hedge fund activism, proxy fights, joint ventures and securities law. Rosenblum has been recognized by Lawdragon as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America and as one of the 500 Leading Dealmakers in America. He has been selected several times as a BTI Client Service All-Star by the BTI Consulting Group for his level of dedication and commitment to exceptional client service.
Lawdragon Honors
Rosenblum’s recent significant representations include: Anywhere Real Estate in its pending combination with Compass, Inc.; 3M in its spinoff of its health care business; J.M. Smucker in its acquisition of Hostess Brands and in its sale of certain pet food brands; Arconic in its sale to Apollo; Nielsen in its sale to a private equity consortium led by Elliott and Brookfield and in the prior sale of its Connect business to Advent; Zendesk in its sale to a private equity consortium led by Hellman & Friedman and Permira; Kansas City Southern in its sale to Canadian Pacific; Medline in its sale of a majority interest to Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman; 3M in its Reverse Morris Trust transaction combining its food safety business with Neogen; Michael Dell in Mr. Dell’s and Silver Lake’s buyout of Dell, Inc. (for which Mr. Rosenblum was named Dealmaker of the Year by The American Lawyer), in Dell’s acquisition of EMC, in Dell’s Class V stock exchange, and in Dell’s spinoff of its interest in VMware; Edgewell Personal Care in several transactions, including the acquisition of Billie; Envision Healthcare in its sale to KKR; Genesco in its proxy fight with Legion; General Motors in its proxy contest with Greenlight Capital; Verizon in its acquisition of Yahoo’s core businesses; Visa in its acquisition of Visa Europe; Target in the sale of its pharmacy business to CVS; J.M. Smucker in its acquisition of Big Heart Pet Brands; Energizer in the spinoff of its household products business; Verizon in its acquisition of Vodafone’s 45% interest in Verizon Wireless; tw telecom in its sale to Level 3 Communications; Cracker Barrel in its five consecutive proxy fight victories over Biglari Holdings as well as its 2022 settlement with Biglari; PPG Industries in the split-off and sale of its specialty chemicals business to Georgia Gulf, and in the sale of its joint venture interest in Transitions Optical to Essilor; Ralcorp in its sale to ConAgra; and Duke Energy in its merger with Progress Energy. Rosenblum’s prior representations include significant transactions for Smurfit-Stone, ITT, Morgan Stanley, General Mills, Ameriprise Financial, Ceridian, ALLTEL, Respironics and Nextel Partners. He has also previously represented AT&T in a number of transactions, including the acquisitions of McCaw Cellular, Teleport, TCI and Media One, the IPOs and spinoffs of Lucent and AT&T Wireless, and the sales of AT&T Broadband to Comcast and AT&T to SBC, as well as representing AT&T Wireless in its investment from NTT DoCoMo and its sale to Cingular.
Rosenblum received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1982 and his B.A. from Harvard College magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1978. Prior to joining the firm, he was a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph L. Tauro, United States District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts.
Rosenblum is a member of the American Law Institute, the American College of Governance Counsel, and the Board of Advisors of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. He writes and participates in panels and programs on a number of topics, including mergers and acquisitions, shareholder and hedge fund activism, corporate governance, corporate disclosure and proxy reform. He has served as co-chair of the Annual Federal Securities Institute in Miami since 2005.