Morrison & Foerster has a leading global Mergers & Acquisitions practice. The depth and breadth of the practice reflects the dynamic nature of our clients, which include Fortune 500 companies, private equity sponsors, investment banks and privately-held companies.
Some relevant statistics:
- over 200 M&A lawyers in 16 offices worldwide;
- served as counsel on 145 M&A transactions, which had a total disclosed value of more than $140 billion in 2012
- advised on 27 M&A transactions each worth over $1 billion in 2012
- ranked as an "Elite" firm in Corporate M&A Nationwide by Chambers USA and named 2012 M&A Group of the Year by Law360
Our M&A lawyers work as an integrated team with experts in key areas such as intellectual property, antitrust, litigation, tax, labor and benefits, finance and bankruptcy, real estate, environmental, and securities. Our internal approach is highly collaborative.
Clients rate our services with commentary such as "intensely dedicated to achieving the client's objectives" and "highly creative problem solvers" -- in short we know how to get deals done.
We also work closely with our clients to achieve practical resolution of the many issues -- both expected and unexpected -- arising in M&A transactions. We create solutions to resolve issues, close transactions and help the combined companies prepare for post closing operations.
We have one of the world's preeminent intellectual property practices. This expertise is a critical discipline that we bring to our M&A practice. Our intellectual property experience covers virtually every aspect of intellectual property including patents, copyright, trademark, trade secrets, licensing, litigation and counseling.
Our M&A experience reflects our focus on cross border transactions. As a leading global law firm, we are truly international in many aspects -- from our client base to the people who work here. A large number of our lawyers have spent substantial time overseas. Where needed, we seamlessly staff M&A projects both in the U.S. and from our offices in Asia and Europe. Many of our M&A lawyers are multi-lingual.
Some of the industry areas where we have deep transactional experience include technology and Internet, life sciences, media, consumer and branded products, cleantech and energy, financial services and financial institutions, telecommunications, and retailing and leisure.
A representative list of some areas of our M&A expertise includes:
- traditional M&A transactions for both private and public companies
- cross border transactions
- strategic acquirors in serial acquisition programs
- proxy contests, hostile and contested transactions
- special committee and Board counseling
- poison pills and other defensive counseling
- going private and other transactions with controlling shareholders or other insiders
- private equity sponsored transactions
- "roll ups" and other consolidation programs
- auctions, "go shops" and other bid programs
- corporate carve outs and divisional acquisitions
- joint ventures and complex strategic alliances
- advice to investment banks in their capacity as M&A advisors
- recapitalizations, bankruptcy, distressed and leveraged transactions.
Some clients we have represented in M&A projects include Astellas Pharma, Boyd Gaming Corporation, The Clorox Company, Fujitsu, Gruppo Campari, Hitachi, Intel Corp/Intel Capital Corp, Angang New Steel Company, Japan Airlines, Korn/Ferry International, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mitsui, Nikon, Restoration Hardware, Ricoh, TDK, Technicolor, China Medical Technologies, Inc., Toshiba and Visa.