Sep. 13, 2012
William M. Kelly
See more on William M. KellyDavis Polk & Wardwell LLP Menlo Park Corporate Specialty: mergers and acquisitions/corporate governance
Kelly specializes in mergers, acquisitions and corporate governance work for a variety of Silicon Valley technology companies.
Recently, he represented San Francisco-based real estate information company Loopnet Inc. in its $860 million purchase by its Washington, D.C.-based rival CoStar Group. The deal closed in March.
"They are two leading online real estate information and listing services," Kelly said. "We led [Loopnet] to a successfully negotiated transaction after a very extended and painful antitrust review, from which we emerged with a good outcome for Loopnet shareholders."
Kelly is the founder of Davis Polk's Menlo Park office and firmwide chair of the corporate governance practice.
He said his experience as a general counsel and business executive has helped shape his practice at Davis Polk. He joined the firm in 2000 after he spent six years with Silicon Graphics International Corp. in Fremont.
"I was general counsel for two years, and then I was in a variety of business roles," Kelly said. "I hope I have a little bit more empathy, because I've been in their shoes before. You like to think you're able to give practical advice, because you know the realities of being inside of a company. It's a really different experience from being in a law firm."
Kelly regularly represents clients like Oracle Corp., Affymetrix Inc., FormFactor Inc. and computer networking company Blue Coat Systems Inc.
Last December, he led Davis Polk's representation of Sunnyvale-based Blue Coat Systems in its $1.3 billion purchase by private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC.
"We had been their regular corporate counsel, and we led them through a detailed sale process involving lots of potential bidders and some interesting conflicting governance issues," Kelly said. "Again, we got to a good answer and a successful completion."
- DAVID MCAFEE
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