Stephen P. Salmon

Advising clients in a range of complex deals, Salmon made partner at Davis Polk last year after joining the firm straight out of law school about a decade ago.

Salmon led a Davis Polk team advising the syndicate of underwriters that helped Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. in its initial public offering. The IPO was one of the largest by a California company last year, according to Renaissance Capital LLC, an IPO-tracking firm.

"It was my first time as the lead partner on a deal," Salmon said. "The company has a really interesting technology to combat peanut allergies that they're hoping to expand to other food allergies."

The deal also had constraints. "The chief challenge was compressing what would normally take several weeks to a couple of weeks in order to take advantage of favorable timing," he added.

The IPO was successful despite the expedited timeline, raising about $160 million, without including underwriters' shares and discounts and deducting offering expenses.

Salmon also led a team of Davis Polk attorneys advising World Kitchen LLC, a houseware brands maker and distributor, in its sale to GP Investments Acquisition Corp. in a cash-and-stock deal valued around $566 million.

"This was an interesting deal that had elements of an M&A deal and an IPO," Salmon said. "World Kitchen will become a public company as a result of the transaction."

GP Investments Acquisition Corp. is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, set up to acquire an existing company.

"The main challenge was understanding the SPAC deal market," Salmon said. "It was an interesting learning experience to work on SPAC structures and understand the different deal technologies."

He added: "Both sides worked really well together to achieve the results they were looking for."

Salmon isn't a stranger to multi-billion deals. He was a part of the Davis Polk team advising Ingram Micro Inc., the Irvine-based global technology and supply chain services provider, in its $6 billion sale to Tianjin Tianhai Investment Co. Ltd., a part of the Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate known as HNA Group Co. Ltd. The deal, still ongoing, was announced earlier this year.

One of his favorite things about his job, Salmon said, is learning about the different companies and the different industries they serve.

"I really enjoy my practice because I've gotten to work with a variety of companies across a lot of different industries, from small biotech companies going public for the first time, to global tech companies, to an airline and recently, a kitchenware company," Salmon said. "It's interesting and challenging to jump into different situations and continually learn about new businesses and industries."

- Melanie Brisbon