“他把客户服务提升到其他律师难以企及的高度。他与客户形成特别的默契关系,结合深厚的经验、视角及幽默感,帮助客户切实地权衡问题,探讨备选方案,而不会迷失方向,也不会做出目光短浅的决策。”《法律500强》2014年刊
概述
William (Bill) Kucera是孖士打(Mayer Brown)美洲并购业务部的联席主席,专注于并购业务,擅长代表买方、卖方进行股票与资产的收购与剥离、上市公司合并与私有公司合并、要约收购与交换要约、合资公司、风险投资以及其他私募股权投资。他也为公司提供企业管治与防御措施建议,包括股东权益计划及相关问题。借助他活跃于并购领域的法律服务经验,Bill还是孖士打并购相关交易保险业务部的主管,向保险商就保证及补偿保险和其他类型的并购交易保险事宜提供法律意见,并已成为这一快速成长领域的领先专家。
Bill被《钱伯斯美国》(2010年至2018年)评为伊利诺伊州最佳公司并购律师之一,还被《美国法律500强》(2012年至2018年)评为大型并购交易领先律师。《美国法律500强》援引客户的评价说:Bill“聪明能干,工作极为努力,但没有废话、假扮或虚张声势”,“他带领一支一流团队,以协作和务实的方式提供一流的服务”。《钱伯斯美国》2015年刊援引客户的话说:“他是一名非常务实、注重实效的律师。”《钱伯斯美国》2013年刊指出,他“具有在紧迫的期限下提供顶尖法律服务的能力,同时采用行之有效的方法,把握商业目标。” 自2009年起,他每年都入选“全美最佳律师”以及“伊利诺伊州超级律师”榜单。他曾入选《并购律师国际名人录》,被《法律名人录:公司并购及管治》评为领先律师,并被《领先律师网络》评为公司金融法、合并及收购法、上市公司法以及证券及风险融资法这四个领域的领先律师。2015年,他成为《The Deal》首届顾问委员会的成员,该委员会负责《The Deal》的编辑和产品开发工作,由经过精挑细选的跨领域交易人士组成。 2010年,Bill入选《Crain's Chicago Business》的该年度“40岁以下40大名人”榜单,该榜单评选的是芝加哥商界的新兴领袖。2013年,他在一宗美国破产法第363条资产出售案中就购买抵押资产事宜提供法律意见,该项目被《并购顾问》评为10亿美元以上类别的“年度最佳并购交易”。
语言能力
- 英语
执业经验
Bill’s experience includes representation of:
- SCANA Corporation, which owns South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, in its entry into an agreement with Dominion Energy, Inc., one of the largest energy utility companies in the United States, providing for a stock-for-stock merger valued at $14.6 billion including debt.
- Ocwen Financial Corporation in connection with its purchase of the mortgage loan servicing business of Residential Capital LLC (ResCap) in a Bankruptcy Court sponsored auction.
- Caterpillar in its $8.6 billion acquisition of Bucyrus International, Inc., a publicly traded mining equipment company.
- Textura Corporation, a NYSE-listed provider of construction contracts and payment management cloud services, in its $663 million sale to Oracle.
- The Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., a NYSE-listed company, in its $660 million sale to MidOcean Partners.
- Mead Johnson Nutrition Company in its $7.7 billion split off from Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
- SPSS, a publicly held software company headquartered in Chicago, in its acquisition by IBM for a total cash consideration of approximately $1.2 billion.
- iPCS, Inc., a publicly traded wireless telecom company, in its sale to Sprint-Nextel Corporation via a cash tender offer.
- Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc., a publicly-traded owner and operator of casino properties in seven states, in its sale to Eldorado Resorts, Inc. for $1.7 billion.
- CBOT Holdings in connection with its $12 billion merger with Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings, as well as CBOT Holdings' review and consideration of an unsolicited proposal from Intercontinental Exchange.
- Tilia in the acquisition of Ellison Bakery Inc, producer of cookies and crunch toppings for the ice cream industry.
- Tilia Holdings in the acquisition of Universal Pure, LLC, a provider of high pressure processing (HPP) services to food and beverage manufacturers.
- Callpod, Inc., a developer of consumer electronic products and software solutions, and its subsidiary, Keeper Security, Inc., the provider of the highly-rated cybersecurity platform for preventing password-related data breaches and cyberthreat, in a $60 million Series A financing round by Insight Venture Management, LLC, a global venture capital and private equity firm.
- 3i-backed Regional Rail LLC in the acquisition of Carolina Coastal Railway Inc., which operates 180 miles of freight railroad in North Carolina and South Carolina.
- 3i-backed Regional Rail LLC in the acquisition of Pinsly Railroad Company’s Florida operations, with 208 miles of track across three short-line railroads.
- 3i Group in its agreement to purchase Regional Rail, LLC, a leading owner and operator of short-line freight railroads and rail-related businesses.
- First State Investments in the acquisition of 100 percent of the equity of Patriot Rail and Ports, which operates a portfolio of 12 short-line freight railroads with more than 585 track miles across 14 states in the United States.
- Aliaxis Group in the sale of its subsidiary, Harrington Industrial Plastics LLC, a leading distributor of industrial products for corrosive and high purity applications, to Nautic Partners, LLC.
- bioMérieux in the acquisition of Astute Medical, a company that identifies and validates protein biomarkers of medical conditions.
- bioMérieux in the acquisition of Invisible Sentinel Inc., a company focused on rapid microbial detection solutions for consumer products.
- bioMérieux, a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics, in a multimillion equity investment in Banyan Biomarkers, a developer of blood tests capable of diagnosing traumatic brain injuries.
- nTelos Holdings in its $640 million acquisition by Shenandoah Telecommunications Co., a provider of broadband services, digital TV, high-speed internet and phone services to customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.
- Becker Professional Education, a division of DeVry Education Group Inc., in the $330 million acquisition of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), the largest international membership organization dedicated to enhancing the knowledge and skills of anti-money laundering and financial crime prevention professionals, from Warburg Pincus LLC.
- Safe Foods International Holdings in its sale to Covance Laboratories, Inc., a laboratory testing and consulting company.
- UK-based Celsis International, a leader in rapid microbial detection systems for leading pharmaceutical and consumer products companies, in its $212 million acquisition by Charles River Laboratories International, Inc.
- ICON Venue Group in its sale to CAA Sports, a division of entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency.
- bioMérieux in its acquisition of BioFire Diagnostics Inc., a privately held company specialized in molecular biology, for a total purchase price of $450 million plus net debt.
- OCZ Technology Group, Inc. in the sale of certain of its assets to Toshiba Corporation in a Bankruptcy Court sponsored auction.
- Macquarie Infrastructure Partners in its acquisition of NASDAQ-listed WCA Waste Corporation.
- GATX Financial Corporation in connection with the sale of its aircraft leasing business (having assets with a book value of more than $1.5 billion) to Macquarie Aircraft Leasing Limited, a consortium of investors including affiliates of Macquarie Bank Limited and Och-Ziff Capital Management.
- Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T, in connection with its acquisition of Nistevo Corporation from its shareholders, including private equity firms Bessemer Venture Partners and Insight Venture Partners.
- TransCanada in its $505 million purchase of USGen New England’s hydroelectric assets out of bankruptcy.
- Capital One in its acquisition of esmartloan.com from National Bank of Kansas City and esmartloan.com management.
- Marconi Corporation plc in connection with the divestiture of its Outside Plant, Power and Services businesses to Emerson Electric Co. for a total consideration of approximately $406 million in cash and assumed liabilities.
- Devon Energy in its $5.3 billion acquisition of Ocean Energy via a public merger.
- Arthur Andersen in the divestiture of its various offices and practice groups including multiple transactions involving the sale of its audit practice to several large, international accounting firms and the sale of its business consulting practice to KPMG Consulting, Inc.
- Brunswick Corporation in the sale of the assets of its Zebco fishing business.
- Illinois Tool Works in its $3.4 billion acquisition of Premark International, Inc. via a public merger.
- The majority owners of Edline LLC, a leading provider of technology solutions and services to the K-12 education market, in the sale of Edline to the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.
- Terrence and Judith Paul, majority shareholders of Renaissance Learning, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed provider of technology-based school improvement and student assessment programs for K-12 schools, in connection with the pending sale of Renaissance to the Permira Funds.
- DeVry, Inc., in connection with its acquisition of American University of the Caribbean.
- Southeast Anesthesiology Consultants, P.A., a 90-member physician group providing anesthesia services in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, in its sale to American Anesthesiology, a subsidiary of publicly traded MEDNAX, Inc.
- Baxter in its acquisition of Edwards Lifesciences Corporation’s Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy business.
- The Special Committee of the Board of Directors of APAC Customer Services, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed provider of customer care services and solutions, in its review of and response to an acquisition proposal made by APAC's founder and chairman.
- Dow Chemical in the sale of its Proresin subsidiary to Monument Chemicals.
- Sagmel, Inc., in the sale of substantially all of its assets to Bayer Consumer Care AG.
- CIBC World Markets, as lender and financial advisor to Upper Deck, in connection with Upper Deck's unsolicited tender offer for The Topps Company.
- Edline LLC in connection with its acquisition of the assets of Orbis Software, Inc.
- Baxter Healthcare Corporation, as a shareholder in Corautus Genetics, Inc., in connection with the merger of Corautus and Via Pharmaceutical.
- Edline LLC, a website hosting and portal solution, in connection with a dividend recapitalization transaction with American Capital.
- Go2Call, a venture-capital backed provider of Voice over Internet Protocol solutions, in the sale of its service provider and consumer businesses to deltathree, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company.
- TransCanada Corporation in its acquisition from El Paso Corporation of ANR Pipeline Company, ANR Storage Company and an additional 3.55 percent interest in Great Lakes Gas Transmission Limited Partnership (Great Lakes) for a total purchase price (including assumed debt) of $3.4 billion; also represented TransCanada Corporation, as the general partner of TC PipeLines, LP, in a related transaction in which TC PipeLines acquired 46.45 percent of Great Lakes from El Paso Corporation for $962 million (including the assumption of debt).
- Aliaxis SA in connection with its tender offer for 100 percent of the outstanding shares of Durman Esquivel, a publicly traded Costa Rican company, and its related joint venture with the majority owner of Durman Esquivel with respect to their respective businesses located in Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
- bioMerieux SA in the sale of its coagulation product line, with assets in more than 30 countries, to Trinity Biotech plc, a NASDAQ-listed company based in Ireland.
- Ryerson Tull in its acquisition of all of the stock of Integris Metals, Inc., a joint venture of Alcoa and BHP Billiton.
- GATX Corporation in the sale of the assets of its information technology equipment leasing subsidiary to CIT Group.
- LSG Lufthansa Service Holding AG, the catering division of the German airline Lufthansa, in connection with the sale of its US-based Chef Solutions subsidiary to Questor Management Company, a private equity firm.
- Marconi Corporation plc in connection with the sale of its North American Access Business to Advanced Fibre Communications, Inc., for a total consideration of $240 million.
- Marconi plc in the divestiture of its Marconi Data Systems subsidiary to Danaher Corporation.
- Yahoo! Inc. in the sale of its Warped Tour subsidiary.
- Brambles U.S.A., Inc., in the sale of its Brambles Equipment Services, Inc., subsidiary to National Equipment Services, Inc.
- Abbott Laboratories in the divestiture of its kits and trays product line to Smiths Group plc.
- Vysis, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company, in its sale to Abbott Laboratories via a public tender offer.
- GATX Corporation in the divestiture of its terminals business to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P.
- GATX Corporation in the sale of its logistics business to management and an investor group led by Oak Hill Capital.
- TransCanada Pipelines Limited in the sale of its ANGUS Chemical Company subsidiary to The Dow Chemical Company.
- Abbott Laboratories in its acquisition of International Murex Technologies Corporation via a public tender offer.
- Leonard Green Partners, LP in its leveraged purchase of more than 100 community newspapers from Hollinger International Inc.
观点
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4 月 18 日2023 年
Governance and Disclosure Reminders for Public Companies
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
相关活动
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11 月 03 日2023
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10 月 24 日2022 年
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10 月 20 日2021 年
新闻
教育背景
Northwestern University School of Law, 法律博士, 优等成绩
Order of the Coif; Note and Comment Editor, Northwestern University Law Review
Colgate University, BA, magna cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa
执业资格
- 伊利诺伊州
会员资格
- Former member of Board of Directors, The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Illinois