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ProfessionalsSteven J. Williams

Steven J. Williams
Partner

Tel: +1-212-373-3257
Fax: +1-212-492-0257
swilliams@paulweiss.com

+1-212-373-3257
New York

1285 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10019-6064
Fax: +1-212-492-0257

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Education 
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A partner and a deputy chair of the Corporate Department, Steven J. Williams is a member of the firm's Mergers and Acquisitions Group. Steven has extensive experience with public company transactions, leveraged buy-outs, mergers-of-equals, board representations and special committee representations, as well as with private equity and venture capital transactions, auctions, joint ventures, carve-outs, spin-outs and restructuring transactions. He is active in contested matters, representing targets in proxy fights, consent solicitations, tender offers and other unsolicited transactions. In addition, Steven has broad expertise in acquisitions and sales of asset management and other financial services firms.

EXPERIENCE

Steven’s recent transactions include representing:

  • ADP in its successful proxy contest against Pershing Square
  • Angelo Gordon in its $2.7 billion sale to TPG
  • Aptiv in the formation of a $4 billion autonomous-driving joint venture with Hyundai Motor Group, the partial sale of its stake in the joint venture, and its $4.3 billion acquisition of Wind River from TPG Capital
  • The special committee of Avangrid in the $2.6 billion acquisition of the company’s remaining shares by Iberdrola
  • Barnes & Noble in its sale to an affiliate of Elliott Management
  • Bellisio Foods in its $1.075 billion sale to Charoen Pokphand Foods
  • Chambers Street Properties as counsel to the board of trustees and in its merger of equals with Gramercy Property Trust for an enterprise value of $5.7 billion
  • Chesapeake Lodging Trust in its $2.7 billion sale to Park Hotels & Resorts
  • Chevron in its proposed $50 billion acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum
  • Chico’s FAS in its successful proxy contest against Barington Capital
  • Citigroup in the sale of Nikko Asset Management to Sumitomo Trust
  • Commvault in the activist campaigns by, and settlement agreements with, Elliott Management and Starboard Value
  • Continental Grain Company in its $4.5 billion joint venture with Cargill to acquire Sanderson Farms
  • The special committee of the Expedia Group board of directors in its acquisition of Liberty Expedia Holdings
  • General Electric in the spin-offs of GE Healthcare and GE Vernova and the launch of GE Aerospace; the $21.4 billion sale of its BioPharma business to Danaher; the more than $30 billion combination of its jet leasing unit, GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS), with AerCap Holdings; and GE Capital in the sale of PK AirFinance to Apollo Global Management and Athene Holding
  • General Motors Co. in its $3.45 billion acquisition of SoftBank Vision Fund’s equity ownership stake and assumption of Softbank’s investment obligation in the autonomous vehicle joint venture Cruise
  • Harris Corporation in the sale of its Government IT Services business to Veritas Capital
  • Honeywell International in the spin-off of its Transportation Systems business to form Garrett Motion
  • IBM in its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat; the spin-off of Kyndryl Holdings, Inc., its managed infrastructure services business, into a separate publicly traded company; its pending $6.4 billion acquisition of HashiCorp; its $4.6 billion acquisition of Apptio; its strategic partnership with Palo Alto Networks; its separate acquisitions of Dialexa, Envizi, Instana Neudesic and NS1; and the sale of The Weather Company to Francisco Partners
  • Imperial Sugar Company as special counsel to the board of directors and in its sale to Louis Dreyfus Commodities
  • International Strategy & Investment Group in its sale to Evercore
  • Janus Capital Group in its strategic alliance with Dai-ichi Life
  • L3Harris Technologies in the $1 billion sale of its Airport Security and Automation business to Leidos Holdings
  • Mastercard in its acquisition of Orbiscom
  • Nuance Communications in its $19.7 billion sale to Microsoft, the spin-off of its Automotive business to form Cerence and in the sale of its Document Imaging business to Kofax
  • The special committee of the Pilgrim’s Pride board of directors in its $1.3 billion acquisition of Moy Park from JBS
  • Qualcomm in its successful defense against a $142 billion hostile takeover offer from Broadcom and in the proposed $47 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors
  • Reckitt Benckiser Group in its successful $1.4 billion topping bid and tender offer for Schiff Nutrition International and in its collaboration agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb for, and related option to acquire, various market-leading OTC pharmaceutical brands in Latin America and Mexico
  • Red Hat in its acquisition of StackRox and its pending acquisition of Neural Magic
  • Resolute Forest Products in its $2.7 billion sale to The Paper Excellence Group through the Group’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Domtar Corporation
  • RXO in its pending $1.025 billion acquisition of Coyote Logistics from UPS
  • Spectrum Brands in its $1.4 billion acquisition of Armored AutoGroup and its acquisition of Procter & Gamble’s European Pet Food business
  • Tencent Holdings in its going-private acquisition of eLong, its investment in Glu Mobile and its investment, together with JD.com, in Bitauto Holdings
  • Trane Technologies in the $15 billion Reverse Morris Trust spin-off and merger of its industrial business with Gardner Denver Holdings
  • XPO Logistics in the separation of its tech-enabled brokered transportation services from its less-than-truckload (LTL) business in North America to create two separate publicly traded companies

Steven served as a notes editor of the Columbia Law Review and was a James Kent Scholar and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Steven is the recipient of a Legal Aid Society award for outstanding pro bono representation. Steven is a member of the advisory board of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and a board member of Citizens Committee for New York City.

Steven is recognized as a leading lawyer for his work on “M&A: Large Deals ($1bn+)” and as a recommended lawyer for “Shareholder Activism: Advice to Boards” by The Legal 500. Steven was featured as one of Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Dealmakers in America” for 2022.

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