Mike Ringler

Mr. Ringler regularly advises boards, special committees and management teams on mission critical and transformative M&A transactions. He also advises boards and special committees confronting challenges to corporate control, such as unsolicited acquisition proposals, proxy contests and shareholder activism. Mr. Ringler is ranked Band 1 in Chambers USA, has repeatedly been named in Chambers Global, has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 2010 and has been recognized on many occasions as a leader in his field by national and statewide publications, including The American Lawyer, The New York Times, California’s Daily Journal and IFLR1000.

Mr. Ringler’s recent representative transactions include:

• Coherent in its initially announced $5.7 billion sale to Lumentum, followed by Coherent’s subsequent responses to competing acquisition proposals from MKS Instruments, II-VI and Lumentum in a three-party bidding war culminating in Coherent’s $7.1 billion sale to II-VI.
• SK Hynix in its $9 billion acquisition of Intel’s memory business. 
• Livongo Health in its $18.5 billion sale to Teladoc.
• Credit Karma in its $7.1 billion sale to Intuit.
• F5 Networks in its $1 billion acquisition of Shape Security and its $440 million acquisition of Volterra.
• Xperi Corporation in its $3 billion merger with TiVo Corporation.

Mr. Ringler’s representative transactions prior to joining Skadden include:

• Hewlett-Packard in its:
  • $25 billion acquisition of Compaq and related proxy contest with Walter Hewlett; and
  • $5 billion acquisition of Mercury Interactive.
• Freescale in its $19 billion sale to a private equity consortium led by The Blackstone Group.
• CA Technologies in its $19 billion sale to Broadcom.
• Seagate in its:
  • $18 billion three-party sale to Silver Lake Partners and Veritas; and
  • $2 billion acquisition of Maxtor.
• Pixar in its $8 billion sale to The Walt Disney Company.
• Sun Microsystems in its:
  • $7.8 billion sale to Oracle; and
  • $2 billion acquisition of Cobalt Networks.
• McAfee in its $7.7 billion sale to Intel.
• MuleSoft in its $7 billion sale to Salesforce.com.
• Business Objects in its $7 billion sale to SAP.
• Informatica in its $5.3 billion sale to Permira Advisers and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
• LSI in its $5.2 billion merger with Agere Systems.
• Cypress Semiconductor in its $5 billion merger of equals with Spansion.
• FEI in its $4.8 billion sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific.
• Riverbed Technology in its $4 billion sale to Thoma Bravo.
• AppDynamics in its $3.8 billion sale to Cisco.
• Solectron in its $3.6 billion sale to Flextronics.
• Trulia in its $3.5 billion sale to Zillow.
• 3Com in its $3.3 billion sale to Hewlett-Packard.
• Aruba Networks in its $3 billion sale to Hewlett-Packard.
• Salesforce.com in a number of transactions, including its $2.5 billion acquisition of ExactTarget.
• 3PAR in its:
  • $2.4 billion sale to Hewlett-Packard following Hewlett-Packard’s unsolicited acquisition proposal for 3PAR during the pendency of 3PAR’s proposed $1.7 billion sale to Dell; and
  • proposed $1.7 billion sale to Dell (terminated following 3PAR’s receipt of an unsolicited acquisition proposal from Hewlett-Packard).
• The GoDaddy Group in its:
  • $2.25 billion sale to Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures; and
  • $1.8 billion acquisition of Host Europe Group.
• Taleo in its $2.2 billion sale to Oracle.
• Redback Networks in its $2.2 billion sale to Ericsson.
• Flatiron Health in its $2 billion sale to Roche.
• Apptio in its $2 billion sale to Vista Equity Partners.
• Marketo in its $1.8 billion sale to Vista Equity Partners.
• YouTube in its $1.7 billion sale to Google.
• CVent in its $1.65 billion sale to Vista Equity Partners.

Selected Awards and Recognition

• Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Band 1 ranked and described as an “exceptional M&A lawyer” who is held in “high esteem by clients and peers alike”
• Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, listed annually
• The Best Lawyers in America, listed annually since 2010, including being honored as a 2017 M&A Lawyer of the Year
• The Legal 500 2019, which described him as “an accomplished M&A lawyer with an excellent record in multi-billion dollar transactions”
• The American Lawyer, Dealmaker of the Year, 2021 and 2015
• Daily Journal, California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year (CLAY) Award, 2021 (in recognition of work on behalf of Livongo in its $18.5 billion sale to Teledoc Health)
• Daily Journal’s 2019, 2018, 2015 and 2012 lists of the Top 100 Lawyers in California
• Daily Journal, M&A Top Innovator, 2015
• Daily Journal, Top 20 Under 40, 2007
• The Recorder, Attorney of the Year, 2010
• The New York Times’ 2007 list of the “next generation of deal-makers”