John P. Edwards

John Edwards focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and other corporate and securities matters.

Mr. Edwards represents acquirers, sellers and targets in a wide variety of transactions, including public and private mergers, acquisitions, dispositions (including auctions), joint ventures, shareholder activism and other corporate matters.

Significant U.S. and cross-border transactions include the representation of:

• Ball Corporation in its pending $5.6 billion sale of its aerospace business to BAE Systems
• Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partners Ltd. in its $5.1 billion acquisition of American National Group, Inc.
• Core Specialty Insurance Holdings, Inc., in its merger with Lancer Insurance Company, following which the combined business had over $1.1 billion in equity capital
• Black Diamond in its acquisition, with Investindustrial, of Hexion Inc.’s phenolic specialty resin, hexamine and European-based forest products resins business for $425 million
• Ball Corporation in its $225 million divestiture of its Chinese beverage can and end manufacturing business
• AutoNation, Inc. in:
  • its acquisition of RepairSmith for $190 million
  • its acquisition of CIG Financial for $85 million
• Kemper Corporation in its sale of its accident and health insurance business to Medical Mutual of Ohio for $90 million
• Dürr AG, a major German mechanical and plant engineering firm, in its acquisition of MEGTEC/Universal for $130 million
• Bakelite Synthetics in its acquisition of Georgia-Pacific’s chemicals business
• The Middleby Corporation in:
  • its acquisition of Zhuhai Guangdong China-based United Foodservice Equipment Group
  • its acquisition of Standex International Corporation’s Cooking Solutions Group
  • its acquisition of M-TEK Corporation
  • its acquisition of L2F Inc.
• TreeHouse Foods, Inc., in its cooperation agreement with activist investor JANA Partners LLC
• American National Insurance Company in the sale of its medical stop-loss business to Core Specialty Insurance Holdings

Mr. Edwards also helps provide training to junior associates at the firm.