A partner in the Corporate Department, Steven J. Williams is a member of the firm’s Mergers and Acquisitions Group and of its Investment Management transactions practice. Steven has extensive experience with public company transactions, leveraged buy-outs, mergers-of-equals, board representations and special committee representations, as well as with private equity and venture capital transactions, auctions, joint ventures and restructuring transactions. He is active in contested matters, representing both activists and targets in proxy fights, consent solicitations, tender offers and other unsolicited transactions. In addition, as a member of the firm’s Investment Management transactions practice, Steven focuses primarily on acquisitions and sales of asset management and other financial services firms.

Steven’s recent experience includes representation of:

• Affiliated Managers Group in its majority investment in, and restructuring of, Pantheon Ventures;
• Citigroup in its sale of Nikko Asset Management to The Sumitomo Trust and Banking Co., Ltd.;
• Elliott Associates in connection with numerous transactions and activist campaigns, including Elliott Associates’ investment in the leveraged buy-outs of Metrologic Instruments Inc., Packeteer Inc., MSC.Software and Novell, Inc, and in its proxy fight for Iron Mountain Incorporated;
• Harbinger Capital Partners in the proxy fight by it and Firebrand Partners for The New York Times Company;
• Imperial Sugar Company as counsel to the Board of Directors;
• MasterCard International in its acquisition of Orbiscom Limited, a Dublin, Ireland-based leading payments solutions software provider for major financial institutions;
• Moelis & Company in its acquisition of Gracie Credit;
• ORIX USA Corporation in its majority investment in the parent company of Mariner Investment Group; and
• Religáre Enterprises Limited in its acquisition of a majority interests in Northgate Capital and in Landmark Partners.

Steven served as a notes editor of the Columbia Law Review and was a James Kent Scholar and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Steven is the recipient of a Legal Aid Society award for outstanding pro bono representation.