In the News The Am Law Daily

Private Equity Deals Yield Roles for Five Am Law 100 Firms

A trio of major private equity firms announced two major acquisitions on Monday, providing transactional work for five Am Law 100 firms.
 
Kirkland & Ellis corporate partners Gerald Nowak and Theodore Peto in Chicago are advising longtime private equity client Thoma Bravo on its $1.1 billion all-cash acquisition of Deltek, a Herndon, Virginia-based project management software company.
 
Thoma Bravo, which focuses its investments on the software and technology sectors, has relied on Kirkland since the private equity firm was formed after the breakup of Chicago-based Golder, Thoma, Cressey, Rauner in the late 1990s.
 
Kirkland has been particularly busy for Thoma Bravo in recent months. Earlier this year, Nowak took the lead advising Chicago-based Thoma Bravo on its $1.25 billion acquisition of network security services company SonicWall. In December, Thoma Bravo tapped Nowak and Kirkland for outside counsel on its $1.3 billion purchase of network management and security company Blue Coat Systems.
 
Of Thoma Bravo's six managing partners, two are lawyers. Name partner Orlando Bravo is a former teenage tennis prodigy and graduate of Stanford Law School, while Lee Mitchell was a telecommunications partner at Sidley Austin in Chicago from 1992 to 1994.
 
Deltek, which specializes in enterprise software and information technology services for government contractors and professional services firms, turned to Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson corporate partners Abigail Bomba, Brian Mangino, and Richard Steinwurtzel, and litigation partner Peter Simmons for counsel on its sale to Thoma Bravo.
 
New York-based private equity firm New Mountain Capital, Deltek's largest shareholder, has agreed to the transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. Harvard Law School graduate Steven Klinsky, who serves on Deltek's board of directors, founded New Mountain in 2000.
 
Another member of Deltek's board is Bert Notini, a former senior partner at Boston-based Hale and Dorr, which merged with Washington, D.C.-based Wilmer Cutler Pickering in 2004. Deltek's general counsel is David Schwiesow.
 
In the other major private equity deal of the day, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett took the lead for buyout shops First Reserve and SK Capital Partners on their agreement to acquire specialty chemical maker TPC Group for $850 million, including net debt.
 
Simpson M&A partner William Curbow is leading a team from the firm working on the matter that includes banking and credit partner J. Alden Millard, Jr.; capital markets partner Edward Tolley III; tax partner John Creed; IP partner Lori Lesser; antitrust partner David Vann; senior antitrust counsel Michael Naughton; senior environmental counsel Michael Isby; employee benefits counsel Aimee Adler; and real estate counsel Krista McManus.
 
In December, Simpson advised affiliates of Greenwich, Connecticut-based First Reserve on their $1.36 billion sale of the Bahamas Oil Refining Company International—the largest owner and operator of marine storage facilities for petroleum products in the Caribbean—to Buckeye Partners. The firm also advised First Reserve on its $335 million acquisition of K-Sea Transportation Partners in April 2011.
 
Anne Gold serves as chief compliance officer and general counsel for First Reserve, while Mark Delevie serves as an operating partner and general counsel for SK Capital.
 
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom M&A partners Frank Bayouth and Nicholas Slavin and corporate finance partner Richard Aftanas are advising a special committee of TPC's board on the company's proposed sale to First Reserve and SK Capital. Rishi Varma serves as general counsel for TPC, which is the world's largest producer of butadiene, a hydrocarbon used in synthetic rubber and as a gasoline additive.
 
TPC was known as Texas Petrochemicals until 2010, when it adopted its current name. The Houston-based company filed for bankruptcy in 2003 when one of its main products was phased out nationally because of pollution concerns. (Former Baker Botts partner Courtney Tippy and Bracewell & Patterson, which changed its name to Bracewell & Giuliani in 2005, represented the debtor in its Chapter 11 case.)
 
Breen Haire, a corporate partner at Baker Botts in Houston, is now leading a team from the firm advising TPC as it goes private. Other Baker Botts lawyers working on the matter include tax partner Michael Bresson; employee benefits chair Gail Stewart; antitrust partners Paul Cuomo and Paul Lugard; finance partners Herschel Hamner and Luke Weedon; securities litigation cochair David Sterling and
litigation partner Danny David; and environment special counsel Whitney Swift.
 
TPC's sale to its new private equity owners is valued at roughly $627 million, excluding debt. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

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