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Private Equity

Simpson Thacher is quite simply the world’s leading legal advisor in the private equity sector. Since the earliest days of private equity, clients have sought our advice on fund formation, minority investments, mergers and acquisitions, financing solutions and exit transactions. Significantly, we have represented the private equity sponsor in the five largest leveraged acquisitions ever completed.

Our scale and depth give us insight into the needs of every participant in private equity transactions: private equity sponsors, senior bank lenders, subordinated and bridge lenders, management and financial investors and underwriters. We have partnered with our clients as trailblazers in developing various acquisition and financing techniques in the private equity field, and we continue to be the firm of choice for many of the world’s largest and most sophisticated private equity firms.

Practice of the Year
A Private Equity Practice Group of the Year, Law360 2011–2023

As buyout techniques have expanded geographically, we have increasingly been called on by clients in Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia and Latin America, in addition to our broad client base of U.S. private equity firms. We now provide formation and transactional services to our global clients through virtually every one of our offices.

Some of our more prominent recent private equity transactions have included:
Silver Lake as the second-largest shareholder in VMware’s $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom
Blackstone’s €21 billion recapitalization of Mileway, its acquisition of Atlantia S.p.A, its investments in Spanx and Supergoop!, among others
Hellman & Friedman’s $11 billion acquisition of Ultimate Software
DigitalBridge Group and IFM Investors’s $11 billion acquisition of Switch
KKR’s $9.9 billion acquisition of Envision Healthcare, its €6.825 billion acquisition of Unilever’s global Spreads business and its acquisition of Global Atlantic Financial Group
EQT and Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Parexel
Apax Partners, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s $6.725 billion sale of Acelity and its KCI subsidiaries to 3M
Stonepeak’s $6.2 billion acquisition of Teekay LNG Partners, its $3 billion recapitalization of Cologix and its $2.7 billion acquisition of Lumen Technologies’ Latin America operations
New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of PerkinElmer’s Applied, Food and Enterprise Services businesses for up to $2.45 billion
Global Infrastructure Partners’ $1.375 billion acquisition of NRG Energy’s renewable energy business
Angeles Equity Partners’ acquisitions of RōBEX and Mid-State Engineering
Apollo Global Management’s acquisition of The Michaels Companies
Baring Private Equity Asia’s acquisition by EQT AB
BC Partners-owned PetSmart’s acquisition of Chewy.com
Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman’s majority investment in Medline Industries
BlackRock’s Global Energy & Power Infrastructure team’s merger with GasLog
Centerbridge Partners’ acquisition of IBM’s portfolio of marketing and advertising software products
Cerberus Capital Management’s acquisition of both Brooklyn Bedding and Helix Sleep
Corsair Capital’s investment in Miracle Mile Advisors
CVC Capital Partners’ acquisition of a majority interest in Hermes Transportes Blindados S.A.
“One of the finest private equity firms in the world, working for some of the finest private equity houses in the world.”
Chambers Global
Top 2
Ranked in the top 2 for Global Private Equity Announced Deals for 10 of the past 15 years 
(Bloomberg)
Band 1
Band 1 ranking in Private Equity, 2009–2024 (Chambers Global)

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        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher Named “Private Equity Team of the Year” at 2024 Legal Business Awards
        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher Named a Law360 Private Equity “Practice Group of the Year” for 2023
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        Simpson Thacher Named “Private Equity Team of the Year” at IFLR Americas Awards
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        Elizabeth Cooper and Marni Lerner Named Private Equity “Top Women in Dealmaking” by The Deal