Alan F. Denenberg

The lead up to Twitter's $2.1 billion initial public offering last year was especially clandestine, Denenberg said.

"We met in secret locations," he added. "It was all very discreet. They didn't want to deal with the press the way other high-profiles like Facebook had to in the lead up to their IPOs."

The company did a good job of staying under the radar, said Denenberg, who served as lead counsel to the underwriters in the deal.

"There was a huge amount of attention, with the press constantly pushing for information and endlessly speculating on timing," he added. "Until we publicly filed, the press was way off in their speculation about deal timing."

Among the challenges of crafting the IPO, Denenberg said, was the nature of Twitter.

"This is a company that has been around for awhile," he said. "It took a little while for them to figure out a business model and how to make money on this cool technology."

He added, "Initially, it wasn't operated to grow as a full-fledged commercial enterprise, built to generate revenue and profit."

After the company brought in a management team with a commercial mindset, Denenberg said, "This really changed the nature of the business in a way that allowed it to maintain its broad user appeal, but also figure out how to make this into a real business that would generate revenue and profit."

The working group had to come up with the metrics to demonstrate to investors how the business had grown and where it was headed, Denenberg said.

In this deal, he added, "Twitter was less focused on maximizing proceeds in the short run, as much as making the IPO wholly successful and building a base for the future."

In another high-profile transaction last year, Denenberg served as lead counsel to J.P. Morgan Securities LLC as financial adviser to the special committee of independent directors of Dell Inc. in connection with the $24.4 billion acquisition by Dell founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners.

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