Alison S. Ressler

Ressler has deep experience in mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, corporate governance and capital markets. Twenty years ago she became the first woman on Sullivan & Cromwell’s management committee, where she remains, now joined by two other women. She serves as co-lead of the global private equity group and is on the firm’s women’s initiative and diversity committees.

Steering the firm through the pandemic while keeping up with an extremely full array of transactions was how she spent the year. “Any time you have a crisis, it’s a challenge,” Ressler said.

“You have to be professional because you’re running a business, and you have to think about the human element. One reason I have remained at Sullivan & Cromwell is because we’re a true partnership that takes care of everybody who works here. This year was an opportunity to show what makes us so special. The legal profession is a service business, and we served our clients well even as we supported each other.”

For more than a decade, Ressler has advised long-term client Ares Management Corp., which is based in Los Angeles and has about $207 billion in assets under its supervision.

Four major Ares deals closed over the past two years. She counseled Ares and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Canada’s largest single-profession pension plan with $204.7 billion in net assets, in their acquisition of a minority interest in TricorBraun, a U.S.-based full service rigid and flexible packaging supplier.

Ressler also represents Ares in the restructuring and successful emergence from bankruptcy of Ferrellgas Partners LP. Funds associated with Ares led a consortium in purchasing $700 million of newly created non-convertible preferred equity units in Ferrellgas’ operating partnership.

She is advising Ares in connection with Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets’ agreement to acquire Cincinnati Bell Inc. for $2.9 billion. The deal was struck after a multi-round bidding war between the Ares-Macquarie consortium and Brookfield Infrastructure, which led to the termination of Cincinnati Bell’s merger agreement with Brookfield.

And Ressler represented Ares in the acquisition of Press Ganey Associates Inc., an Indiana-based health care analytics company, and in Ares’ investment in BioScrip Inc., of Denver, Colo., an independent national provider of infusion and home care management.

Those were just a fraction of Ressler’s deal-making achievements over an intensely crowded year. “During the months of lockdown I completed as many deals as I ever have in my career,” she said.

- John Roemer