Richard E. Climan

Climan handles some of the most significant acquisitions in the technology and life sciences sectors. He joined Hogan Lovells in 2017, bringing with him a tech M&A team that has worked together for more than 20 years. He now serves as the global head of the firmwide tech M&A practice.

“What we’ve tried to do, and what I think we’ve succeeded in doing, is to take a law firm that no one associated with M&A in Northern California and help transform it into in an M&A market leader, something of a tech M&A powerhouse, in a relatively short period of time,” he said.

Climan led the team that advised Marvell Technology Group, which develops infrastructure semiconductor solutions, on its acquisition of high-speed data movement platform Inphi Corp.

The complex cash-and-stock deal, valued at approximately $10 billion, closed in April and is one of the year’s most prominent transactions in the semiconductor sector. The transaction entailed, among other things, a multibillion-dollar debt financing, the domestication of Marvell from Bermuda to the United States and shareholder votes on both sides of the transaction.

“It was one of most complex, multifaceted deals I have ever handled,” Climan said. “I ran a team of over 40 Hogan Lovells lawyers across five practice groups. And of course, this played out during the pandemic … but we are nothing if not versatile and adaptable in a volatile, unpredictable environment such as this one.”

Climan has extensive experience in cross-border transactions, since a high proportion of M&A deals in the tech sector span global economies. He said he enjoys the challenges – both structural and cultural – particular to such deals.

Over the past two years, his team has completed a dozen significant acquisitions for Synopsys on three continents. He has represented the electronic design automation (EDA) company for more than 15 years and oversees all of its M&A activity.

Climan chairs the firm’s M&A Boot Camp program, which this year involved more than 1,000 participants, including law students, investment bankers and junior M&A professionals from across the country.

“Our group is only as good as the pipeline of talent we hire in an ultra-competitive environment,” he said. “The M&A Boot Camp is one of the best ways to capture the smartest, most motivated law students, who will become our next generation of M&A stars.”

-- Jennifer Chung Klam