Davis Polk & Wardwell today announced that Bjorn Bjerke, Mary
Conway, Michael Davis, Avi Gesser, Harald Halbhuber, Kimberley D.
Harris, Kirtee Kapoor, Jinsoo H. Kim, James C. Lin, Arthur S. Long,
Mark M. Mendez, Edmund Polubinski III, Lanny A. Schwartz, Sarah K.
Solum and Mischa Travers have been elected partners of the firm
effective July 1, 2007. Davis Polk now has 160 partners in its offices
in New York, Menlo Park, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Frankfurt,
Madrid, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo.
Mr. Bjerke is a corporate lawyer focusing on complex structured
products and derivatives including asset-backed debt instruments, fund
linked instruments and credit based arrangements. His recent
transactions include representing a large real-estate fund complex in
a multi-billion dollar lending arrangement; representing large
financial institutions in developing various fund-linked structures
and derivative trading platforms and establishing synthetic CDO
structures. He also represented ISDA as drafting counsel in connection
with the 2006 ISDA Fund Derivatives Definitions and Delta Air Lines in
connection with certain financing arrangements linked to Delta Sky
Miles.
Ms. Conway is a tax lawyer concentrating in investment management
matters, including the formation and operation of private equity
funds, hedge funds, mutual funds and other pooled investment vehicles.
She has provided advice to Chilton Investment Company, Credit Suisse,
Crestview Partners, FrontPoint Partners, HRJ Capital, Integrated
Finance Limited, J.P. Morgan, Magnetar Capital and Morgan Stanley,
among others. Her practice includes partnership matters and
international tax matters.
Mr. Davis is a corporate lawyer concentrating in mergers and
acquisitions. The matters he has worked on recently include advising
IPSCO in connection with its proposed sale to SSAB Sventskt Stal;
Marsh & McLennan in connection with the proposed sale of Putnam
Investments to Great-West Lifeco; IPSCO on its acquisition of NS
Group; FrontPoint Partners on its sale to Morgan Stanley; MCI on its
sale to Verizon; Ford on its acquisition of plants from, and the
restructuring of its business relationship with, Visteon; and various
other private equity and venture capital transactions.
Mr. Gesser is a litigator concentrating in securities class
actions and enforcement, white-collar criminal defense matters and
complex commercial cases. Currently, he is representing a major
investment bank in class actions involving analyst independence
issues. He also recently served as a lead negotiator of a multi-year
comprehensive agreement between a large consumer products company and
multiple governmental bodies related to international trade issues. He
has represented corporations and individuals in various investigations
that have been resolved favorably prior to trial. He was also part of
the litigation team representing Delta Air Lines in its Chapter 11
restructuring.
Mr. Halbhuber is a corporate lawyer in the London office. His
practice focuses on a broad range of corporate finance and mergers and
acquisitions transactions. In corporate finance, he has advised both
issuers and underwriters on debt and equity transactions. Most
recently, he worked on several high-yield debt issuances by European
issuers. He has also worked on several initial public offerings and
rights offerings. His recent M&A transactions include advising Morgan
Stanley on acquisitions in Russia, Italy and the U.K., and Carl Zeiss
SMT in the structuring of a joint venture with Cymer and the
acquisition of a U.S. nanotechnology company.
Ms. Harris is a litigator with extensive experience representing
corporate clients in a variety of criminal, regulatory, and complex
civil matters. Recent representations include: the Audit Committee of
an auto parts manufacturer in connection with an internal
investigation, as well as related criminal and regulatory
investigations by the federal government; a major investment bank in
connection with criminal and regulatory investigations of the bank's
IPO allocation practices; a former director of the New York Stock
Exchange in connection with an investigation by the New York Attorney
General and the SEC; and a major pharmaceutical company in connection
with multiple complex civil class actions in both state and federal
court.
Mr. Kapoor is a corporate lawyer who has had extensive experience
in corporate finance, restructurings, workouts and mergers and
acquisitions transactions. His experience also includes several
transactions in India. His recent matters include advising The
Gillette Company in connection with its $57 billion acquisition by The
Procter & Gamble Company; Oracle Corporation on its $600 million
acquisition of a majority stake in i-flex solutions; Oracle
Corporation on its $5.85 billion acquisition of Siebel Systems and
Delta Air Lines on its Chapter 11 restructuring generally and in
connection with the over $10 billion unsolicited bid from US Airways.
Ms. Kim is a corporate lawyer concentrating in lending and other
corporate finance transactions. She represents corporate clients and
financial institutions in secured acquisition and other leveraged
financings, unsecured financings, debt restructurings and exit
financings. Recent representations include Freeport-McMoran Copper &
Gold in a $11 billion senior secured financing in connection with its
acquisition of Phelps Dodge, J.P. Morgan in a $4.5 billion
debtor-in-possession facility for Delphi, Delta Air Lines in a $2.5
billion senior secured exit financing, and Goldman Sachs Credit
Partners and Credit Suisse in a leveraged acquisition financing for
Education Management.
Mr. Lin is a corporate lawyer in the Hong Kong office, advising on
public and private corporate finance transactions, including initial
public offerings, high-yield debt offerings and private equity
investments. He advised China Merchants Bank on its $2.66 billion HKSE
listing, Air China on its $1.24 billion HKSE/LSE listing; and the
underwriters in the privatization and NYSE/HKSE listing of Aluminum
Corporation of China. Mr. Lin has also worked on several NASDAQ IPOs,
including the $124 million listing of Baidu.com and the $468 million
listing of Himax Technologies. He regularly advises a number of Asian
high-technology companies on U.S. law matters.
Mr. Long is a corporate lawyer advising U.S. and foreign banks on
the regulatory implications of M&A transactions; private equity
investments; the offering of new financial products, including
derivatives; enforcement , compliance and bank insolvency issues; and,
in the case of foreign banks, establishing U.S. offices.
Representative matters he has worked on include Banco Santander's
investment in Sovereign Bancorp; SLM Corporation (Sallie Mae) on its
proposed sale; the acquisition by Citizens Financial Group of Charter
One Financial; Citigroup's acquisition of Banamex; Banco Bilbao
Vizcaya's merger with Argentaria; and JPMorgan's investment in KorAm
Bank.
Mr. Mendez is a corporate lawyer focusing on equity derivatives.
Recently, he has advised Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs as
book-running managers of a $1.5 billion offering by General Motors of
convertible senior debentures and a Citigroup affiliate on the related
capped call transaction; CVS Corporation in connection with a $2.5
billion collared accelerated share repurchase; Montpelier Re Holdings
in connection with two variable share forward sale agreements; Morgan
Stanley and Merrill Lynch in connection with the issuance of debt
securities mandatorily exchangeable for shares of Class A common stock
of Nuveen Investments; and JPMorgan in connection with the Microsoft
Employee Stock Option Transfer Program.
Mr. Polubinski is a litigator representing corporations and
individuals in a wide range of securities, professional liability,
products liability, general commercial and acquisition-related
litigation in federal and state courts. He also represents corporate
and individual clients in investigations and other proceedings before
various regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange
Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, and the New York Stock
Exchange. Recent matters include the defense of an investment banking
client in putative class action antitrust litigations; the
representation of a corporate issuer and individual clients in class
action securities litigation and a related SEC investigation; the
defense of a major pharmaceutical company in nationwide consumer
protection and product liability litigation; and the representation
through trial of a big four accounting firm in litigation arising out
of the failure of a large national bank.
Mr. Schwartz is a corporate lawyer advising on securities
compliance, regulatory and transactional matters. His clients include
major international banks, broker-dealers, securities exchanges,
consulting firms, a securities industry trade association and a large
life settlement provider. From 1999 to 2005, he was executive vice
president and general counsel of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.
Previously, he was managing director and counsel at Bankers Trust
Company, specializing in bank and broker-dealer regulation and
investment banking. He speaks and writes regularly on securities
market structure and regulatory issues, and was formerly a member of
the adjunct faculty of Columbia University School of Law.
Ms. Solum is a corporate lawyer in the Menlo Park office, advising
on capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, SEC
disclosure and corporate governance. Recent capital markets
transactions include convertible debt offerings for Cadence Systems,
Cypress Semiconductor and Equinix; investment grade debt offerings for
Comcast, Oracle and Seagate; follow-on offerings for Kaiser Aluminum,
Wet Seal and Onyx Pharmaceuticals; initial public offerings for
Chipotle Mexican Grill and CAI International; and McDonald's spin-out
of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Mergers and acquisitions she has worked on
recently include advising NetIQ on its sale to Attachmate WRQ and
Oracle on its acquisitions of Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft.
Mr. Travers is a corporate lawyer in the Menlo Park office,
advising technology companies and their underwriters and investors on
mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings and other corporate
transactions. Recent matters he has worked on include KLA-Tencor's
acquisitions of ADE, Therma-Wave, SensArray and OnWafer; Software AG's
acquisition of webMethods; Affymetrix's acquisition of ParAllele;
Comcast's strategic partnership with TiVo; a $2.25 billion debt
offering by Comcast Corporation; Affymax's initial public offering;
convertible debt offerings by Borland Software, Boston Properties,
Informatica, Intel, Macrovision and Xilinx; and various investments in
private companies by affiliates of Richemont.
If you have questions about this news release, please call the
Davis Polk & Wardwell Business Development Office, 212 450 6811.