Corporate & Transactions
Across negotiating tables and in boardrooms, O’Melveny’s lawyers help reshape businesses, align capital structures to strategic plans, and drive growth.
We recognize that the only measure of quality that matters is our ability to contribute to the long-term success of our clients. And so we are fanatical about client service: we invest time to learn our clients’ business, culture, and goals. We leverage our considerable network to refer investment opportunities, introductions to financing sources, and connections to key business contacts. We push ourselves to produce business solutions to our clients’ pressing needs—not just technically sound legal analysis.
User-friendliness defines our approach. Our collaborative culture allows us to bring together integrated, cohesive teams across numerous disciplines—M&A, capital markets, finance, IP and commercial law, executive compensation, tax planning, restructuring, and corporate governance among them—for the benefit of early-stage startups, private equity sponsors, and multibillion-dollar global corporations alike.
We know that a client-centric commitment matters: the majority of our top clients have worked with us for more than a decade, turning to us year after year for multiple transactions and day-to-day corporate counseling. Whether our clients call on us for a company-changing strategic initiative, a complex capital-raising transaction, or a creative solution to a pressing business issue, the privilege of being their “trusted advisor” is one we don’t take for granted—and it shows.
Client Successes
Counseled CJ ENM, Korea’s leading entertainment company and producer of the Oscar-winning film Parasite, in its US$850 million acquisition of an 80% stake in Endeavor Group’s scripted global premium content studio, Endeavor Content—whose productions have garnered nearly 70 Emmy wins and nominations and another nearly 60 Academy Award wins and nominations. The deal marked the largest ever done by CJ ENM, and made the company “a global entertainment player,” according to Variety.
Served as lead counsel for all Puerto Rico governmental agencies and instrumentalities in the Commonwealth’s US$120 billion restructuring—the largest and most complex municipal restructuring in US history. Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy followed unprecedented challenges: two devastating hurricanes, the governor’s resignation, multiple earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, a US federal judge approved an O’Melveny-crafted comprehensive debt adjustment agreement for a trio of clients—the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Public Buildings Authority, and the Employees Retirement System of the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico—paving the way for Puerto Rico to put this difficult economic chapter behind it.
Acted as primary counsel to Microsemi for more than 10 years, handling all aspects of the semiconductor and system solutions provider’s corporate, governance, disclosure, finance, executive compensation, securities litigation, and regulatory work. Our team worked closely with the company’s C-suite and board of directors to execute an ambitious growth program that involved more than 30 M&A transactions, including the US$245 million acquisition of PowerDsine, the US$100 million acquisition of White Electronic Designs Corp., the US$430 million acquisition of Actel, the US$600 million hostile acquisition of Zarlink Semiconductor, the US$230 million acquisition of Symmetricom, the US$389 million acquisition of Vitesse Semiconductor, and the US$2.5 billion acquisition of PMC-Sierra. Finally, in 2018, we guided the company through its US$10.3 billion acquisition by Microchip Technology, concluding a highly productive partnership that saw Microsemi’s market capitalization increase tenfold in a highly competitive semiconductor industry.
Played a key role in the redevelopment of New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport—the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America. In 2018, our client Terminal One Group Association was chosen to develop JFK’s new south side terminal complex, involving the construction of a 3 million-square-foot upgrade on Terminals 1 and 2 and extension on Terminal 3—a new US$7 billion facility containing 23 gates and 230,000 square feet of stores and restaurants. Our client Vantage Airport Group and its partners JetBlue Airways and RXR Realty were selected to develop a 1.2 million-square-foot, US$3 billion north side terminal complex to be integrated with JetBlue’s existing Terminal 5. In late 2022, we helped the Vantage consortium secure financial approval for the new terminal, reaching a US$4.2 billion financial close, allowing construction to begin immediately.
Represented Shandong, China-based biopharmaceutical company RemeGen in a series of groundbreaking capital markets transactions. In 2020, we helped the company with its HK$4.59 billion initial public offering and primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange—the largest biopharma sector IPO and primary listing of the year—which earned the transaction “Deal of the Year” honors from China Business Law Journal and “Megatrend Deal of the Year – Healthcare” from FinanceAsia. Two years later, we advised the company on its A-share listing on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, an RMB2.6 billion transaction that marked one of the few H-then-A-share listings successfully completed to date by a Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed company—a move that permits RemeGen access to China A-share investors while continuing to leverage Hong Kong as its international platform for global branding, licensing, and M&A.