Sonia K. Nijjar

Nijjar’s mergers and acquisition work in 2018 spanned a diverse range of clients, exemplified by two similar deals in which she represented vastly different buyers.

“Every time you have a deal that you’re working on, you’re able to utilize your past experience to help guide you, but on the flip side of that, every deal has its new challenges,” she said.

Nijjar represented private equity firm Silver Lake Management LLC in acquiring 90 percent of GE Digital’s ServiceMax Inc. It required a carve out of the business from the General Electric conglomorate and separately reselling 10 percent of equity ownership back to GE.

The challenge is determining how to extract a smaller business from a larger organization and how interconnected they are, Nijjar said.

“On the buy side, you get this proposal from the seller, and it’s your job to do your diligence and figure out, ‘Is this going to be successful and what do you need at what time?,’” she said.

In a different deal, Nijjar represented the opposite type of buyer: Amadeus IT Group SA, a major publicly listed Spanish company. Amadeus acquired TravelClick Inc., which offers hospitality software, from the private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC.

Working with a company based in Madrid raised a host of cross-border complications, including time zone challenges, according to Nijjar. She worked with local counsel in Spain to work through initial questions and strategy.

“These were two fairly different experiences, both involving private equity but on either side, and both involving large strategic companies,” she said of the transactions.

At Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates, Nijjar co-leads the hiring committee in Palo Alto, as well as the firm’s “Series of Women” committee, which hosts networking events to connect female clients and female attorneys.

“Women in the law, that in and of itself is such an important initiative. We want to make sure that our women attorneys at the firm are getting a chance to network with other women attorneys at different clients,” she said. “It’s bridging the gap in the legal community.”

— Erin Lee