Sarah P. Payne 

As managing partner of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP’s Palo Alto office and co-head of its capital markets group, Sarah P. Payne has built an impressive resume of major transactions that include many big-name clients. With over two decades of experience, she has advised on debt and equity offerings that have accumulated to more than $216 billion.

In 2022, she advised Joe Tsai, co-founder and executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group, in his participation in a record-setting $75 million equity financing of the WNBA. This is the largest capital raise for a women’s sports property. “It was incredible to be part of such a significant transaction in women’s sports,” Payne said. Tsai is also an owner of the WNBA New York Liberty team, as well as the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center.

In 2021, she along with Sullivan & Cromwell partner Alison S. Ressler, advised Upbound Group, Inc. — formally known as Rent-A-Center, Inc. — in its acquisition of Acima Holdings for $1.65 billion in cash and stock transaction.

Payne also works closely with SoftBank Group Corp. and has been involved with some of its most significant transactions, such as the monetization of its interest in T-Mobile US, which raised about $20 billion in 2020. Since then, she has advised additional transactions to further monetize its stake in T-Mobile.

In 2021, SoftBank closed a series of complex transactions that included: variable prepaid forward sale contracts generating cash proceeds of $1.8 billion and a $2.65 billion term margin loan secured by common stock shares of T-Mobile and Alibaba Group Holding Limited, and a $1.25 billion bridge margin loan, also secured by common stock shares of T-Mobile and Alibaba.

These monetization transactions were undertaken following SoftBank’s entry into an agreement with Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s largest shareholder. In a share swap transaction, Deutsche Telekom agreed to exercise options to purchase T-Mobile common stock in consideration for shares of Deutsche Telekom common stock. This represented a 4.5% stake in Deutsche Telekom.

“These transactions are very complex. We worked closely with the SoftBank legal and business teams to develop novel transaction structures,” Payne said. “I love the challenge of the work and continually learning new things … what keeps me going is learning about new technologies, new products, and working with both the legal and business teams to help them achieve their objectives.”

— Devon Belcher