Sep. 13, 2012
Daniel R. Mitz
See more on Daniel R. MitzJones Day Palo Alto Corporate Specialty: mergers/acquisitions
The economic climate has remained relatively good for mergers and acquisitions in the world of technology, Mitz said.
"There are a lot of very good companies that have a lot of cash and are using it as a way to grow," he added.
Cloud computing - a system for delivering hosted computing services over the Internet - is especially heating up, he said.
"A couple of years ago, people didn't talk about cloud computing," Mitz said. "Now lots of established software companies want to provide a cloud offering."
An example is the work Mitz has been doing for SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of German software company SAP AG.
In the past two years, he worked on SAP's $5.8 billion acquisition of Sybase Inc., and over the past nine months, Mitz worked on both of SAP's multibillion-dollar cloud acquisitions - SuccessFactors Inc., valued at $3.4 billion, and Ariba Inc., valued at $4.3 billion.
"It's great for an M&A attorney to be working with a large, growing software company that is acquiring companies in the much-talked about cloud computing space," Mitz said. "It has also been interesting since SAP is a German public company with a significant U.S. presence, acquiring technology companies in California. These are sophisticated cross-border public acquisitions, which have been structured both as mergers and tender offers."
Cross-border deals come with challenges, Mitz said.
"Every time you cross a border, you have to think about how something impacts not just the United States but countries like Germany. You have to deal with German and U.S. laws. There is a little more complexity."
Prior to joining Jones Day, Mitz was vice president of business affairs on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s business development team, in charge of structuring, negotiating and executing Sun's acquisitions and equity investments.
"That has given me perspective on what buyers and sellers are looking for," Mitz said, "not only the legal reality but the business concerns and making legal issues digestible to business people."
- PAT BRODERICK
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