Trevor Norwitz is a partner in the Corporate Department at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He has counseled a wide range of corporations and other entities in a variety of industries in connection with mergers, acquisitions, investments, divestitures, hostile takeover bids and defenses, proxy contests, joint ventures, financing transactions, corporate governance matters, and crisis management situations.
Significant recent representations by Mr. Norwitz include: The McGraw Hill Companies in its pending sale of the McGraw Hill Education business to Apollo Advisers, and in its joint venture with CME Group to form S&P/Dow Jones Indices; United Technologies in its pending sale of its Hamilton Sundstrand Industrial business to a private equity consortium; CH Energy Group, in its pending sale to Fortis of Canada; Danaher Corporation in its acquisition of Beckman Coulter, Inc., as well as prior acquistions such as Tektronix, Inc. and Sybron Dental Specialties; Novartis of Switzerland in its acquisition of Alcon, Inc., as well as prior acquistions of Chiron Corporation and Eon Labs; Ventas Inc. in its acquisitions of Atria Senior Living Group and Sunrise Senior Living REIT of Canada; Creative Artists Agency LLP in connection with an investment in the talent agency by TPG Group; and Hardinge Inc. in fending off a takeover attempt by Industrias Romi of Brazil.
Mr. Norwitz teaches a course in Mergers and Acquisitions at Columbia University School of Law. He is a member of the American Law Institute, and has served on several corporate law and governance committees of the American Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association. He served as a member of an international advisory group to the South African government on company law reform. A regular speaker and panelist at professional conferences, he has chaired and participated in numerous Practising Law Institute programs and contributes regularly to professional publications on topics relating to M&A and corporate governance. Mr. Norwitz also chairs and serves on a number of non-profit boards of directors.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Mr. Norwitz received his Bachelor of Business Science (Law) degree with First Class Honors from the University of Cape Town in 1986. On a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, he read law at Keble College, graduating with First Class Honors in 1989, before completing an LLM at Columbia University in 1990. He joined Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in 1994 and was named partner in 1998.