News & Events

At the International Financial Law Review Awards Dinner held in London on March 14, 2007, Simpson Thacher won "Equity Deal of the Year" for working on the IPO of KKR Private Equity Investors and "Debt and Equity Linked Deal of the Year" for the NXP Semiconductors acquisition financing.

In the "Equity Deal of the Year" the Firm represented Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co ("KKR") in connection with the formation and structuring of KKR Private Equity Investors, L.P. ("KKR PEI"). KKR PEI’s investment objectives are to invest in KKR’s private equity funds, to make direct co-investments in portfolio companies of KKR’s private equity funds and to pursue opportunistic investments identified by KKR. The transaction, completed in May 2006, was structured as a $5 billion private offering of non-voting common units in the US and abroad. This ground-breaking transaction was the first in which a major US leveraged buyout firm provided an opportunity to invest indirectly in its private equity funds and related transactions in the form of a publicly listed security.

In the "Debt and Equity Linked Deal of the Year" the Firm represented a consortium of KKR, Bain Capital LLC, Silver Lake Partners, Apax Partners and AlpInvest that acquired NXP, and was also co-counsel along with Sullivan & Cromwell to NXP B.V. (formerly known as Philips Semiconductors International). The financing involved $5 billion of bank and bridge financings (including a "covenant lite" revolving credit facility) and $4.5 billion of high-yield bond financing. The high-yield bond offering was the largest European high-yield bond financing and was the largest globally since RJR Nabisco’s bond offering in 1989; the bridge financing was the largest bridge-to-high yield ever funded.

These awards highlight the strength of Simpson Thacher's leading capital markets practice.