Joseph H. Kaufman

Joe Kaufman is a Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where he is a member of the Firm's Capital Markets Practice. Joe advises clients on public and private offerings of debt and equity securities, corporate governance, business combinations and general corporate and securities law matters.  In his spare time, Joe chairs the board of Start Small, Think Big, a non-profit organization which helps under-resourced entrepreneurs build businesses in underserved areas. He is also an avid swimmer and annually swims across Long Island Sound to raise money for cancer research, prevention and treatment on behalf of Swim Across America.

Joe advised Avantor in its $4.37 billion initial public offering in the United States, the second largest U.S. IPO of 2019. He also advised:

• HCA in its $4.35 billion IPO, at the time the largest private equity-backed IPO ever in the U.S., as well as in multiple offerings of secured and unsecured high yield debt securities
• First Data in its $2.94 billion IPO
• KKR in its $2.13 billion high yield debt and preferred equity financing for its acquisition of BMC Software
• Avantor in its $7.7 billion high yield debt and preferred equity financing for its acquisition of VWR Corporation
• KKR as selling stockholder in the $2 billion initial public offering of AppLovin and a $420 million offering of Coty
• Cigna in its issuance of over $5 billion in investment grade debt securities and in related liability management transactions
• Underwriters in connection with high yield and investment grade debt offerings totaling over $25 billion by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Assurant, ADP and Texas Instruments
• KKR in its listing on the New York Stock Exchange and conversion from partnership to corporation, as well as its business combinations with KKR Financial LLC and KKR Private Equity Investors L.P.
• Conflicts Committee of the Board of Directors of Apollo Global Management, Inc. in Apollo’s $1.55 billion strategic transaction with Athene Holding Ltd., as well as Apollo’s 2019 conversion from a limited partnership to a corporation
• Underwriters in Signify Health’s $649 million IPO
• Mosaic in connection with its recent $1.26 billion secondary offering and $315 million concurrent share repurchase, as well as $8.7 billion in secondary equity offerings relating to Mosaic's split-off from Cargill
• Academy Sports & Outdoors in its $200 million IPO and subsequent $400 million high yield debt financing
• National Vision Holdings, Inc. in its $400 million IPO and follow-on equity and convertible note offerings, aggregating over $2.3 billion 
• Aramark in its $834 million IPO, as well as in over $5 billion in offerings of unsecured high yield debt securities
• Underwriters in Signify Health's $649 million IPO 
• Dollar General, Masonite and Toll Brothers, among others in multiple high yield and investment grade note offerings
• BrightView, Dollar General, Virgin Mobile, and Sealy in connection with their respective IPOs

Joe joined Simpson Thacher in 1994 and was elected a member of the Firm in November 2002. Joe was recently recognized by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business 2020 and The Legal 500 USA 2020. He was also named a 2015 “MVP” in Capital Markets by Law360. In 2011, he was named by The National Law Journal as one of the three “Most Influential Lawyers” in the Finance and Capital Markets category.

He received his A.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1989, and his B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) in 1990. He received his J.D. with honors from University of Chicago Law School in 1994, where he was managing editor of the University of Chicago Legal Forum. He is admitted to practice in the State of New York.