Sep. 12, 2013
Kenton J. King
See more on Kenton J. KingSkadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom & Affiliates LLP | Palo Alto | Practice type: Corporate
This was the year of the "bump and jump," said King, who serves as global co-head of his firm's corporate transactions group.
"We've worked on a lot of deals involved in contested situations where we signed up a deal and got jumped by somebody," he said, "or we jumped somebody else's deal. It's unusual to have that many."
One example is the deal King co-led for Dell Inc., a $2.4 billion acquisition of Quest Software Inc., which closed in July 2012, following a months-long bidding war with Quest's founder and CEO Vincent Smith and private equity firms Insight Venture Partners and Vector Capital.
Closing the deal required a lot of heavy lifting, King said, adding, "It's hard to do that when you've got the founder and CEO who has a big block of stock. It then turns into a three-party negotiation."
But, he said, "We were very forceful, deliberate and thoughtful in how we went about doing it, in multiple stages."
Among his other deals, King represented semiconductor company MIPS Technologies Inc. in its acquisition by the United Kingdom's Imagination Technologies Group PLC for $60 million.
In that complex transaction, a patent portfolio and the business operations of the company were sold separately, but simultaneously. Added to that was a bidding war the erupted between Imagination and CEVA Inc. after the deal was announced.
Ultimately, King managed to close the transaction in February.
Another high-profile bidding war broke out in connection with client Steinway Musical Instruments Inc.'s plans to go private.
In August, Steinway confirmed that it would accept a $512 million buyout offer from Paulson & Co., a New York-based hedge fund. The deal is expected to close in September.
King also represented EnergySolutions Inc., a nuclear services company, it its $1.1 billion acquisition by a subsidiary of Energy Capital Partners II LLC, a private equity firm.
Noting that this year has been "choppy in the face of uncertainty," King added, "All trends point to a robust M&A market."
- PAT BRODERICK
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