Mike Ringler

Mr. Ringler has represented large, well-established and industry-leading companies, as well as smaller industry disruptors, in a broad range of technology verticals, including the semiconductor, networking, software and internet industries. 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 Band 1 ranked in Chambers USA and is named in Chambers Global and Best Lawyers in America. He also is named in Lawdragon’s Leading Dealmakers in America guide and has been recognized as a Mergers and Acquisitions MVP by Law360. He 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. He was named a Dealmaker of the Year by The American Lawyer in 2015 and 2021.

His recent representative transactions include:

• Ansys in its $35 billion sale to Synopsys.
• Splunk in its $30 billion sale to Cisco Systems.
• Elon Musk in his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
• Entegris in its $6.5 billion acquisition of CMC Materials.
• Iora Health in its $2 billion sale to 1Life Healthcare.
• Proofpoint in its $12.3 billion sale to Thoma Bravo.
• 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 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 $8.1 billion sale to Intuit.
• F5 Networks in its $1 billion acquisition of Shape Security and its $500 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
• Who’s Who Legal: Thought Leaders USA - M&A 2023 and Global Leader M&A 2022
• Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America, 2024
• Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Dealmakers in America, listed annually
• Business Insider, “The 29 Lawyers Leading Billion-Dollar M&A Deals,” 2021
• The Best Lawyers in America, listed annually since 2010, including being honored as a 2017 M&A Lawyer of the Year
• Law360 2021 Mergers and Acquisitions MVP
• BTI Consulting Group M&A Client Service All-Star, 2021
• The Legal 500, which included Mr. Ringler in its 2024 M&A Private Practice Powerlist and has described him as “an accomplished M&A lawyer with an excellent record in multi-billion dollar transactions”
• MergerLinks Dealmaker, 2023
• 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 Teladoc Health)
• Daily Journal’s 2022, 2021, 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”