Mergers & Acquisitions

Perkins Coie represents public and private companies in a full range of domestic and cross-border transactions, including strategic acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, leveraged buyouts and going private transactions. With nearly 100 M&A attorneys, we have the depth and resources to manage the most demanding transactions. We are active in a variety of industry segments, including life sciences, wireless, telecom, Internet, software, media, hotels, real estate investment trusts (REITs), retail, energy and manufacturing. Attorneys in our practice include members of the ABA Market Trends Committee that produces the annual Deal Points survey, providing us with valuable insight into emerging issues and market data.

We are ranked among the leading law firms in the nation for M&A activity. In 2008, mergermarket’s DealDrivers publication ranked Perkins Coie among the top 20 law firms by both value and volume of M&A transactions in which we represented a buyer or target based in the West Coast. In 2007, we completed more than 70 M&A transactions totaling more than $27 billion in enterprise value, including transactions that were recognized in mergermarket’s top 15 acquisitions nationwide for the media, energy and telecom industries. Perkins Coie represented aQuantive in its landmark $6 billion sale to Microsoft, the sixth largest M&A transaction in the media industry nationwide and among the top 15 West Coast deals. The firm represented Puget Energy in its announced $7 billion sale to a consortium of private investors led by Macquarie Group, which was named the sixth largest energy acquisition nationwide and was also among the top 15 West Coast deals. We represented Integra Telecom in its $710 million acquisition of Eschelon Telecom, listed among the top 10 transactions in the telecom industry nationwide. We handled significant joint acquisitions that included shipping company Teekay Corporation’s $2.2 billion joint acquisition with TORM of OMI Corp., one of the top 10 New England deals in 2007, and Strategic Hotel & Resorts’ $450 million joint acquisition with GIC Realty, an offshore pension fund affiliated with the Government of Singapore, of the InterContinental Chicago and Hyatt Regency La Jolla hotels.

Perkins Coie also represents emerging growth companies in their exit sales to strategic buyers. Recent transactions include the sale of TicketsNow, the world's largest online inventory of secondary market tickets, to Ticketmaster for approximately $300 million. The firm represented Newsvine, a web site that gathers user-generated feedback to rank daily news stories, in its sale to MSNBC Interactive News (msnbc.com), the first acquisition in msnbc.com company history. We also represented airfare predictions web site Farecast in its sale to Microsoft, popular board game developer Cranium in its sale to Hasbro and online recipe source allrecipes.com in its sale to Readers Digest.