Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM.Blackstone's Billions Keep Simpson Thacher Busy as Deals Pile Up
The law firm is advising Blackstone in a $6.2 billion real-estate trust acquisition, marking the pair's latest blockbuster deal together.
September 16, 2019 at 02:22 PM
2 minute read
Extending a relationship that began with Blackstone Group's founding back in the mid-1980s, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is taking yet another turn advising the private equity and financial services behemoth in a multibillion-dollar transaction.
This time, Simpson Thacher is advising funds managed by Blackstone in the acquisition of Dream Global, a real estate investment trust, in an all-cash deal valued at $6.2 billion. Mergers and acquisitions partners Brian Stadler in New York and Wheatly MacNamara in London are leading the Simpson Thacher team.
Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg is also representing Blackstone in the transaction. Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and Greenberg Traurig Germany are advising Dream Global, and Goodmans is advising an independent group of Dream Global trustees.
As private equity has become a defining corporate practice for major law firms, Simpson Thacher has capitalized repeatedly on its strong ties to Blackstone, which stretch back to then-partner Robert Friedman's work for the investment firm from its earliest days. Friedman went on to serve as Blackstone's general counsel, before he was replaced by John Finley, another Simpson Thacher partner, in 2010.
These days the firm is also representing a Blackstone-led consortium on a proposed deal for the London Stock Exchange to take over financial data provider Refinitiv for $27 billion. In the proposal announced last month, Blackstone's majority stake in Refinitiv would drop to 15%.
In June, Simpson Thacher advised Blackstone on a record-breaking, $18.7 billion acquisition of 179 million square feet of industrial warehouses and infrastructure from Singapore-based real estate giant GLP.
Blackstone isn't the only leading private equity firm whose chief lawyer is a Simpson Thacher alum—or that's routinely hiring the firm for big deals. KKR's current general counsel, David Sorkin, is a former Simpson Thacher partner, too, and KKR is a key client. But such ties only run so deep: When it comes to go-to outside counsel, KKR has also sent plenty of work to Kirkland & Ellis.
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