Elizabeth A. Cooper is a Partner in the Firm’s Corporate Department, Co-Head of the Private Equity Mergers and Acquisitions Practice, member of the Executive Committee and Co-Administrative Partner of the Firm. Elizabeth’s diverse practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, investments, recapitalizations and other corporate transactions.
Select M&A transactions on behalf of private equity sponsors include:
- Blackstone in its $20 billion partnership with Thomson Reuters for Refinitiv, Thomson’s Financial and Risk Business; its acquisitions of, and investments in AIG’s Life & Retirement business, Ancestry, BioMed Realty Trust, The Chamberlain Group, Clarus, DCI, Ellucian (with Vista Equity Partners), Harvest Fund Advisors, PSAV, Renaissance, Service King, SERVPRO, Spanx, Sphera, Supergoop! and Tradesman International; and its sales of Allied Barton and Optiv
- Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman in their majority investment in Medline Industries, Inc.
- New Mountain Capital in its acquisitions of Ascensus Specialties Acquisition Corp., ILC Dover, Jarrow Formulas, Natrol, Profile Products and Qualus Power Services and majority investments in Citrin Cooperman and Covaris
- Stone Point Capital in its acquisitions of Duff & Phelps and Ascensus and majority investment in Businessolver
- Oaktree Capital Management in its sale of 62% of the Oaktree business to Brookfield Asset Management and its transaction to assume the management of Fifth Street Finance Corp. and Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp.
- KKR in its acquisition of Avoca Capital and investments in Focus Financial, PURE Insurance and Santander Consumer USA, as well as KKR and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in their joint acquisition of USI Insurance Services
- The Carlyle Group in its acquisition and partial divestiture of The TCW Group and its investment in Sandler O’Neill + Partners
Recent strategic M&A transactions on which Elizabeth has advised include:
- First Data in its $22 billion merger with Fiserv to create one of the world’s leading payments and financial technology providers
- Tyco International in its merger with Johnson Controls and Johnson Controls in the sale of its Power Solutions business to Brookfield
- MassMutual in its $5.7 billion sale of OppenheimerFunds to Invesco
- Fifth Third Bancorp in its $4.7 billion merger with MB Financial
- Synovus in its $2.9 billion acquisition of FCB Financial Holdings
- People’s United Financial in its acquisitions of First Connecticut Bancorp, Gerstein Fisher, Suffolk Bancorp, Danvers Bancorp, Smithtown Bancorp, River Bank and Financial Federal Corporation
- KeyCorp in its $4.1 billion acquisition of First Niagara Financial Group
- SunGard in its $9.1 billion sale to Fidelity National Information Services
- NXP Semiconductors in its $40 billion merger with Freescale Semiconductor
- Xerox Corporation in its $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services
Elizabeth is also a leading lawyer to alternative asset management firms. She has been involved in structuring, negotiating and executing multiple minority investments in private equity firms, including representing each of New Mountain, Bridgepoint, Rockpoint, Clearlake Capital, TPG Sixth Street Partners, Riverstone, TSG Consumer Partners and HIG in a sale of a minority interest to an investor.
In addition, Elizabeth represented the U.S. Treasury in connection with structuring and documenting its $250 billion program for purchasing equity in U.S. financial institutions under TARP and in connection with its equity investments in Citigroup and Bank of America.
In 2022, The American Lawyer named Elizabeth a “Dealmaker of the Year” for her work advising a consortium led by Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman in the blockbuster majority investment in Medline Industries, Inc., which The American Lawyer noted was “the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.” Elizabeth was also recognized as a “Dealmaker of the Year” by The American Lawyer in 2019 for her work on Blackstone’s $20 billion partnership with Thomson Reuters for Refinitiv (the former Financial & Risk business). In addition, Elizabeth was named “Private Equity Lawyer of the Year” at The Deal Awards in 2022 and 2018 and named a Law360 “Private Equity MVP” in 2022. In addition, she has been highlighted among the IFLR1000’s Women Leaders (2021 and 2022), named “Best in M&A” by Euromoney’s Women in Business Law Americas Awards 2020, included on The Deal’s inaugural “Women in M&A: The Powerhouse 20” list and recognized by Crain’s as a “Notable Woman in Law” for 2019. Chambers USA has recognized Elizabeth as a leading lawyer since 2011 and cites clients who rave that she is “fantastic. She is driven, thorough, focused, and good at dealing with everything as it moves forward.”
Elizabeth joined Simpson Thacher following her graduation in 2001 from Columbia Law School, where she was a James Kent Scholar. She received her A.B., cum laude, in 1997 from Harvard University. She is admitted to practice in New York and is a member of the Association of the Bar of New York City.