News & Events

The firm represented a newly formed affiliate of Elevation Partners, L.P. in connection with its acquisition of Pandemic Studios, headquartered in Los Angeles, and BioWare Corp., headquartered in Edmonton, Canada, two leading independent video game developers.  Elevation Partners is a newly formed private equity firm that makes large-scale investments in market-leading media, entertainment and consumer-related businesses. 

The combined investment, including funding of future capital needs, is expected to be more than $300 million, creating one of the world's largest independent game development houses.  The combined investment was publicly announced on November 3, 2005.  The acquisition of Pandemic Studios was completed on November 14, 2005 and the acquisition of BioWare was completed on November 22, 2005. 

The Simpson Thacher attorneys working on the transaction included: M&A - Richard Capelouto, Chad Skinner, Jason Schendel and Bianca Sierra; Tax - Charlie Rappaport and Nancy Mehlman; Employee Compensation & Benefits - Richard Grimm and Wendy Davis; IP - Daniel Frommer and Mark Solomon.  Paralegal Liz Saura also provided valuable assistance.