Kevin P. Kennedy

Since helping to found the Palo Alto office of Simpson Thacher more than 20 years ago, Kennedy has rubbed elbows with some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk.

"I always appreciate getting to know these companies, from test tubes to technology," Kennedy said. "Fortunately, I'm not an incurious person."

Kennedy focuses on securities and corporate governance matters, primarily in the tech and life science industries. He has served as the primary outside counsel for a variety of private and public companies and represented issuers and underwriters in securities transactions such as initial public offerings. For instance, he represented the underwriters in Tesla Motors' IPO and all 15 of its subsequent public offerings, raising more than $15 billion in total proceeds. He's been involved in every public financing untaken by Apple since its IPO, including advising the underwriters in Apple's remarkable $17 billion bond offering.

More recently, Kennedy represented Pleasanton-based biotech 10x Genomics in the largest life science IPO of 2019, at $448.5 million.

Kennedy said the climate for IPOs today is surprisingly mixed.

"It's a tale of two cities. If you had asked me in May, I would have said IPOs are dead. But now, people are starting to look around the corner," he said. "The irony of this being one of the hottest and one of the coldest IPO markets I've seen in my career, in the same year, is one of the more bizarre things I've seen. Everyone loves a comeback story."

Kennedy suspects the IPO climate shift is a result of the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, the upcoming Presidential election, and fluctuations in the stock market.

Kennedy said he has several securities transactions in the hopper.

-- Jennifer McEntee