Adam O. Emmerich practices in Wachtell Lipton’s corporate department, focus-ing primarily on mergers and acquisitions, securities law matters, and corporate governance. His practice has included a broad and varied representation of public and private corporations and other entities in a variety of industries throughout the United States and globally, in connection with mergers and acquisitions, divesti-tures, spin-offs, joint ventures and financing transactions. He also has extensive experience in takeover defense.
Adam is recognized as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America by Lawdragon, as one of the world’s leading lawyers in the field of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Chambers Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers, as an expert in each of M&A, Corporate Governance and M&A in the real estate field by Who’s Who Legal?, and as an expert both in M&A and in Corporate Governance by Euro-money Institutional Investor’s Guides, respectively, to the World’s Leading Mer-gers and Acquisitions and Corporate Governance Lawyers.
Among the transactions in which he has taken a leading role include representing: América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. in its pending acquisition of 21% of Telekom Austria AG; GlaxoSmithKline in its unsolicited offer and acquisition of Human Genome Sciences for $3.6 billion; Deutsche Telekom in its agreed $39 billion sale of T-Mobile to AT&T; AMB Property Corporation in its $15 billion merger with ProLogis, to create a REIT with combined assets owned and under manage-ment of $46 billion; Google in its participation in Nortel patent auction; Grupo Prisa in its $1.5 billion transaction with Liberty Acquisition; Wyeth in its $68 bil-lion acquisition by Pfizer; Simon Property Group in connection with its offer to acquire General Growth Properties for $31 billion; Swarth Investments in the sale of its controlling interest in GVT (Holding) SA, Brazil to Vivendi in a transaction valuing GVT at $4.2 billion; Alcoa in the $14 billion investment in Rio Tinto by Chinalco and Alcoa; the $4.7 billion acquisition of Constellation Energy by Mid-American Energy; Iscar in its $5 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway, and Iscar in its $1 billion acquisition of Tungaloy of Japan; Acciona in its €43.7 bil-lion acquisition with Enel of Endesa and in relation to EON’s offer for Endesa; Tishman-Speyer and Lehman Brothers in their $22.2 billion acquisition of Archstone-Smith; Vornado, Starwood Capital and Walton Street in their $39 bil-lion bid to buy Equity Office Properties; Man Group’s purchase of Refco’s regu-lated futures business in Refco’s bankruptcy proceeding; Taubman Centers’, Da-na’s and Circuit City’s successful defenses of hostile takeover attempts by Simon Property Group, ArvinMeritor and Highfields Capital, respectively; the acquisi-tion by Wal-Mart of an interest in Seiyu in Japan and in transactions in Brazil, China, Puerto Rico and the UK; MacAndrews & Forbes in its recapitalization of Revlon; Cable & Wireless in its exit from its US activities; the successful $6 bil-lion unsolicited offer by Public Storage for Shurgard; The Mills Corporation in its $7.8 billion sale to a partnership of Simon Property Group and Farallon; the ac-quisition by Morgan Stanley and Onex of Town & Country; Lend Lease in the sale of its US businesses; MetLife in a variety of transactions; the acquisition by Raytheon of the defense business of Hughes Electronics from GM, and Raythe-on’s acquisition of Texas Instruments defense business and sale of its Amana ap-pliance unit; the Cisneros family of Venezuela in transactions with Coca-Cola and Bell South; Seagram/Universal’s acquisition of Viacom’s interest in USA Net-work; and MCA’s sale to Matsushita.
Adam joined the firm in 1986 and was named a partner in 1991. He attended Swarthmore College and The University of Chicago, from which he received his J.D. with honors. While at the University of Chicago, Adam served as topics and comments editor of The University of Chicago Law Review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and received an Olin Fellowship in law and economics. Fol-lowing law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Abner J. Mikva, of the Unit-ed States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is a frequent author and speaker on topics relating to mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance, including at MIT’s Sloan Convocation and on India’s CNBC-TV18.
Adam is co-chair of the International Institute for the Study of Cross-Border M&A, co-chair of the advisory board of New York University’s REIT Center for the Study of Public Real Estate Companies and has served as co-chair of the NYU Real Estate Institute’s Annual Symposium on REITs since its inception. He is a member of the Corporate Academic Bridge Group of the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business, and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. Adam serves on the board of directors of the American Friends of the Israel Museum and of the Ramaz School, as well as serving as president of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority and of the Friends of Rambam Medical Center. He was previously a member of the board of directors of the Lawyers Alliance for New York, the Visiting Com-mittee of the University of Chicago Law School, and co-chair of the Young Law-yers Division of the UJA-Federation in New York.
Adam lives in Manhattan with his wife, two daughters and son.