Johanna Mayer

Johanna (Joey) Mayer is a Partner in Simpson Thacher’s Mergers and Acquisitions Practice. She regularly provides counsel to some of the world’s most prominent private equity sponsors, financial institutions, and public and private companies on complex, often cross-border, mergers and acquisitions, public and private mergers and divestitures, strategic investments, joint ventures, recapitalizations and other corporate transactions across a wide range of industries, including media and technology, healthcare, consumer products and services, sports and financial services. Her clients have included KKR, New Mountain Capital, Sirius XM, Providence Equity Partners, Garda World Security and People’s United Financial, among others.

Johanna’s recent representations include:

• KKR in multiple transactions, including its: acquisition of Varsity Brands; acquisition of Instructure; majority investment in Alchemer, the first investment for KKR Ascendant, a new strategy within KKR’s Americas Private Equity platform; $1.4 billion acquisition of PharMerica; acquisition of Ensono from Charlesbank Capital Partners and M/C Partners; strategic investment in Knowlton Development Corporation (“kdc/one”); investment in Coty Inc.; among others
• New Mountain Capital in its acquisitions of Broadcast Music Inc.; PerkinElmer’s Applied, Food and Enterprise Services businesses for $2.45 billion; Jarrow Formulas; Salute Holdings; and its acquisitions and subsequent sale of ILC Dover and Flexan
• Salute Holdings, a portfolio company of New Mountain Capital, in its acquisition of Keysource
• Providence Equity Partners in its investment in Brandt Information Services
• SiriusXM in its $3.5 billion acquisition of Pandora, and in its separation transaction with Liberty Media Corporation
• Wella Company in its acquisition of Briogeo
• Funds advised by Apax Partners in their acquisition of Syneron Candela
• American Electric Power in its sale of four competitive power plants to a Blackstone and ArcLight Capital Partners joint venture
• Ingersoll Rand Inc. in the sale of its Specialty Vehicle Technologies Segment to Platinum Equity for $1.68 billion
• People's United Financial in its acquisition of BSB Bancorp, Inc. for approximately $327 million; acquisition of First Connecticut Bancorp for approximately $544 million; and acquisition of United Financial Bancorp for approximately $759 million
• Avantor in its $6.4 billion acquisition of VWR
• Blue Buffalo in its $8 billion sale to General Mills
• Garda World Security in its acquisitions of ARCA, Worldaware, Whelan Security and its C$5.2 billion recapitalization
• Blackstone and AVINTIV Inc. in connection with Blackstone’s $2.45 billion sale of AVINTIV to Berry Plastics

Johanna received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She received her A.B., cum laude, from Princeton University.