Marisa D. Stavenas

Marisa Stavenas is a Co-Head of the Special Situations group and a Partner in the Firm’s Capital Markets Practice. She has a wide ranging practice advising clients in an array of complex domestic and international capital raising, investment and restructuring transactions. She frequently provides counsel on public and private sales of secured and unsecured debt securities, tender and exchange offer transactions, reorganizations, IPOs, as well as offerings of common, convertible and preferred securities. Her transactions frequently include high yield and secured financings, as well as acquisition financings. Marisa also works with corporate issuers on an ongoing basis as designated underwriters’ counsel in connection with offerings by such issuers. In addition, Marisa regularly advises corporate clients on securities laws, corporate governance and other general matters.

Clients regularly look to Marisa to guide them through their most important and complex transactions. Marisa is ranked by Chambers, which cites her “recent work advising clients on complex novel structures” and quotes clients who have commented that “Marisa is an extraordinary lawyer, mixing clear thinking and focus with a dogged attention to detail” and “Marisa excels in developing an approach that optimizes the balance between the legal and commercial elements.” She was named a Law360 2018 Capital Markets MVP for steering several complex financing transactions on behalf of Hovnanian Enterprises and was selected as a member of the Law360 Editorial Advisory Board for Capital Markets. 

Representative transactions include:

• Hovnanian Enterprises in several financing transactions and corporate governance matters, including a series of secured debt restructuring transactions and exchange and tender offers

• Underwriters in two SPAC IPOs targeting digital transformation and life sciences

• Johnson Controls International in equity and debt tender offers and US and Euro-denominated bond and sustainable finance offerings

• James Hardie Industries in corporate governance matters and debt offerings

• SiriusXM in corporate governance and acquisition financing matters and debt and tender offers

• Caterpillar in debt offerings 

• Taylor Morrison Home Corporation in corporate governance and disclosure matters
• Underwriters in connection with a three-tier crossing lien secured notes offering by Postmedia Network
• Underwriters in debt offerings by Endo International, David Weekley Homes, Empire Communities, Owens-Illinois and Woodside Homes
• Global Blue in its IPO by way of merger with Far Point, a SPAC

• Supernova Partners Acquisition Company, a SPAC, in its business combination with Offerpad

• Underwriters in Realogy’s $1.2 billion IPO, the largest-ever real estate offering, and $2.7 billion of secondary offerings by Apollo Group, and underwriters in several secured and unsecured debt transactions

• Underwriters in a split-off transaction and several debt offerings by Halliburton Company and the IPO of its subsidiary, KBR

Dealer managers in:

• common and preferred stock tender offers, including by AMC Networks, DaVita, GameStop, MGM Resorts, MSG Networks, SLM Corporation and Yahoo!
• exchange offers, including by Domtar Corporation, Endo International, GameStop, IHS Markit and WESCO International

She has served as a contributing editor of Getting the Deal Through and co-authored the United States chapter in Getting the Deal Through: Acquisition Finance, published by Law Business Research.  

Marisa serves on the Steering Committee of the Kate Stoneman Project, a leadership organization comprising women partners at leading New York-based law firms, and serves as a mentor with W.O.M.E.N. in America to help professional businesswomen advance their careers. She is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of All Souls School, an early childhood day school. 

Marisa received her J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University School of Law in 1999, and was a member of the Georgetown University Law Journal. She received a B.S., magna cum laude, from Washington University in 1996.