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Private Equity

Simpson Thacher is quite simply the world’s leading legal advisor in the private equity sector. Since the earliest days of private equity, clients have sought our advice on fund formation, minority investments, mergers and acquisitions, financing solutions and exit transactions. Significantly, we have represented the private equity sponsor in the five largest leveraged acquisitions ever completed.

Our scale and depth give us insight into the needs of every participant in private equity transactions: private equity sponsors, senior bank lenders, subordinated and bridge lenders, management and financial investors and underwriters. We have partnered with our clients as trailblazers in developing various acquisition and financing techniques in the private equity field, and we continue to be the firm of choice for many of the world’s largest and most sophisticated private equity firms.

Practice of the Year
A Private Equity Practice Group of the Year, Law360 2011–2022

As buyout techniques have expanded geographically, we have increasingly been called on by clients in Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia and Latin America, in addition to our broad client base of U.S. private equity firms. We now provide formation and transactional services to our global clients through virtually every one of our offices.

Some of our more prominent recent private equity transactions have included:
Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman’s majority investment in Medline Industries, Inc.
Digital Colony and EQT’s $14.3 billion acquisition of Zayo Group Holdings
Hellman & Friedman’s $11 billion acquisition of Ultimate Software
KKR’s €6.825 billion acquisition of Unilever’s global Spreads business
Melrose Industries’ €7.4 billion acquisition of GKN, the largest unilateral bid in the U.K. since 2009
Blackstone’s $18.7 billion acquisition of U.S. logistics assets from three of GLP’s U.S. funds, the largest-ever private real estate transaction
KKR’s $9.9 billion acquisition of Envision Healthcare
Apax Partners, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s $6.725 billion sale of Acelity and its KCI subsidiaries to 3M
Blackstone-led consortium’s $20 billion acquisition of a majority interest in Refinitiv, Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk Business
Dell and Silver Lake Partners’ $67 billion acquisition of EMC
BC Partners-owned PetSmart’s acquisition of Chewy.com
Centerbridge Partners’ acquisition of IBM’s portfolio of marketing and advertising software products
EQT and Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Parexel
Global Infrastructure Partners’ $1.375 billion acquisition of NRG Energy’s renewable energy business
New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of a majority interest in OneDigital Health and Benefits
Oaktree Capital’s sale of approximately 62% of the Oaktree business to Brookfield Asset Management
Cerberus Capital Management’s proposed acquisition of both Brooklyn Bedding and Helix Sleep
“One of the finest private equity firms in the world, working for some of the finest private equity houses in the world.”
Chambers Global
Top 2
Ranked in the top 2 for Global Private Equity Announced Deals for 11 of the past 15 years 
(Bloomberg)
Band 1
Band 1 ranking in Private Equity, 2009–2023 (Chambers Global)

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        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher Named “Private Equity Team of the Year” at IFLR Americas Awards
        Spotlight on
        Elizabeth Cooper, Marni Lerner and Katie Sudol Named “Top Women in Dealmaking” by The Deal
        Spotlight on
        Law360 Profiles Simpson Thacher as a Private Equity Group of the Year
        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher’s Private Equity Team Named New York Law Journal “Dealmaker of the Year”