There’s nothing like a nice, big private-equity buyout of a joint venture to bring out the lawyers.
That’s certainly the case for Clayton, Dubilier & Rice’s investment in JohnsonDiversey, a commercial cleaning products and services company. CD&R is putting in $477 million in cash and has 11 banks lined up to provide $1.4 billion in a recapitalization that will take out most of Unilever and leave the Johnson family with a scant majority of the shares.
What we found interesting is that the four legal teams on the deal were all led or co-led by women.
Details after the jump.
According to AmLaw Daily’s Brian Baxter:
Debevoise & Plimpton M&A partner Franci Blassberg–one of The National Law Journal’s 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in 2007–led the team that advised Clayton Dubilier, which included leveraged finance chair David Brittenham, M&A partner Jonathan Levitsky, employee benefits partner Jonathan Lewis, tax partner David Schnabel and environmental counsel Stuart Hammer.
Blassberg (Cornell AB ’75, JD ’77) was also a Dealmaker of the Year in 2005 for her role representing CD&R in its part in the club LBO of Hertz, which they flipped in less than a year.
The Johnson family sold down from 67% to 50%, and was represented by McDermott Will & Emery’s Helen Friedli (Purdue BSIM[?] ’77, Indiana JD ’80).
Unilever sold down from 33% to 4% with the assistance of a Cravath duo who walked the same educational path four years apart: Mark Greene (Cornell BA ’89, Penn JD ’93) and LizabethAnn Eisen (Cornell BA ’94, Penn JD ’97)
The subject company, JohnsonDiversey, which will be shortening its name to “Diversey” was represented by Jones Day’s Libby Kitslaar (Mt. Holyoke BA ’79, Case Western JD ’82) with support from finance partner Ward Winslow, banking and finance cochair Robert Graves, tax partner Edward Purnell, antitrust partners Pamela Taylor and Johannes Zöttl, IP partner Scott Burt, employee benefits partner Eric Mosier, and M&A counsel Sheila Saegh Henretta.
Maybe Kitslaar will steal some of Corinne Ball’s thunder as the Queen of Jones Day.
Let’s hear it for the girls!
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