David E. Rubinsky

David Rubinsky is a Partner in the Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits Practice of Simpson Thacher. He regularly advises both executives and employers on all aspects of executive compensation and other employee benefit matters in connection with mergers and acquisitions, and individual and group employment and severance negotiations.

David has extensive experience representing both private equity investors and public companies in structuring equity compensation, employment arrangements, severance and change-in-control arrangements, and ongoing disclosure requirements for stock ownership. He also has a particular focus in the infrastructure and energy sectors, with significant experience advising private equity and corporate investors on compensation and benefits matters in connection with multi billion-dollar transactions involving data centers, energy infrastructure platforms, and fiber optic networks and telecommunications assets. His work in this area spans complex deals that often involve consortium structures, anchor investor arrangements, and cross-border partnerships.

David has been recognized consistently by Chambers USA, with clients describing him as a “phenomenal and practical deals lawyer” with a “wide mastery of trends in the industry.”

Representative transactions on which David has advised include:

• Numerous transactions for EQT and related entities, including its acquisitions of Zeus Company, Certara, Waystar, Madison Energy Investments, Cypress Creek Renewables and Lumos Networks, a majority of Heritage Environmental Services, acquisition, sale of Press Ganey, and sales of Aldevron, Contanda and Clinical Innovations
• Numerous transactions for DigitalBridge and related entities, including its $11 billion acquisition of Switch, $9.2 billion equity recapitalization of Vantage Data Centers alongside Silver Lake, formation of a joint venture with La Caisse (f/k/a CDPQ) for the joint $5.8 billion acquisition of Yondr Group, and the announced $1.5 billion equity investment in Vertical Bridge by affiliates of KKR
• The launch of Helix Digital Infrastructure, a company designed to deliver integrated infrastructure at the speed and scale required for hyperscalers to meet accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) demand and that was founded with anchor investments from investors including KKR, KIA, NVIDIA and Vistra
• A consortium formed by Macquarie Asset Management and GIC in a strategic partnership to establish Theseus Infrastructure, a new platform to develop, operate and lease data center infrastructure at scale to Anthropic
• Numerous transactions for KKR and related entities, including its acquisitions of Simon & Schuster, Boasso Global, S&P Global’s Engineering Solutions business, Barracuda Networks, Overdrive, PetVet Care Centers, PharMerica Corporation, Covenant Surgical Partners, US Insurance Services and Sempra Infrastructure Partners, acquisition and sale of Epicor Software Corporation, and sales of Audiobooks.com and RBmedia
• Numerous transactions for Hellman & Friedman and related entities, including its acquisitions of At Home Group, The NPD Group, Checkmarx, Edelman Financial and SnapAV, investment in Sprinklr, merger of Kronos and Ultimate, and sales of Renaissance Learning and Ellucian
• Numerous transactions for Stone Point Capital, including its acquisition of Ascensus, a minority stake in Truist Insurance Holdings and Focus Financial Partners with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
• TCF in its merger with and Huntington
• WW International in its acquisition of Weekend Health (d/b/a Sequence)
• TransUnion in its acquisition of Verisk Financial Services
• CorePoint Lodging in its sale to a joint venture between affiliates of Highgate and Cerberus Capital Management
• CAVA, Snap One, Certara, PPD, Grocery Outlet, National Vision, Gardner Denver, KKR Real Estate Finance Trust, La Quinta, First Data and Blue Buffalo in their IPOs

David is ranked as a leading lawyer in employee Benefits and Executive Compensation by Chambers USA, which notes that David has a “wide mastery of trends in the industry and provides good solutions to problems” and “is a phenomenal and practical deals lawyer” who can “distill facts very quickly.”

David received his LL.M. from New York University School of Law. He received his J.D. from Washington University School of Law and his B.S. from Washington University. David is admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia.