Kenneth B. Wallach is a Corporate Partner in the Firm’s New York office and serves as Co-Head of the Global Capital Markets Practice and a member of the Executive Committee. Ken focuses his practice on corporate finance transactions. He has also advised clients on mergers and acquisitions transactions. He has represented issuers, private equity sponsors and underwriters in high yield bond offerings, initial public offerings, investment grade debt offerings, follow-on equity offerings, restructurings and other corporate finance transactions. Ken has been recognized by The Legal 500 and Chambers USA, where he was cited “an attorney who can easily take on extremely complicated deals.”
Ken also regularly advises clients with respect to corporate governance, securities laws and general corporate matters. He has also represented corporations and private equity sponsors in a variety of leveraged buyouts, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, spin-offs, joint ventures and other business combination transactions.
Ken advises, among others, Weight Watchers, Mars, Wrigley, Dell, Blue Buffalo, Symantec, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Garda World Security, Assured Partners, Drummond, Cooper-Standard, K2M, Patheon, Silver Lake Partners, Apax Partners, The Invus Group, and JLL Partners.
Ken’s recent transactions include:
- Dell in connection with the financing of its $67 billion acquisition of EMC
- Symantec in connection with the financing of its $2.3 billion acquisition of LifeLock
- Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in connection with various debt refinancing transactions, including a $3 billion debt offering
- Apax Partners in connection with various leveraged buyouts and refinancing transactions, including Garda World Security, Assured Partners and Acelity
- Blue Buffalo in connection with its $779 million initial public offering
- Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. in connection with the financing of its purchase of 2,186 Rite Aid Corporation stores for $5.175 billion
- Underwriters in high yield offerings by Linn Energy, Ultra Petroleum, NGPL, MEG Energy, SandRidge Energy, WPX Energy and Teine Energy
- Weight Watchers in connection with its strategic partnership with Oprah Winfrey
- Initial purchasers in Qualcomm’s inaugural $10 billion investment grade bond offering
Ken recently coauthored the “Securities” chapter in Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel, a joint project of Thomson Reuters/West and the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). The chapter provides in-house counsel with a practical primer on what they need to know to advise their companies with respect to securities law matters and to effectively and efficiently work with outside securities counsel on such matters.
Ken currently serves as a member of the Firm’s Diversity Committee.
Ken joined Simpson Thacher in 1993. Ken practiced in the Firm’s London office from 1995 to 1998, where he worked on a number of international corporate finance and merger and acquisition transactions. He received his B.A. from Duke University, magna cum laude, in 1990 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1993. He is admitted to practice in New York.