William J. Rowe

Partner

Baker & McKenzie LLP

Chicago

T + 1 312 861 2650

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Biography

William J. Rowe is a partner in the Corporate and Securities Practice Group in Chicago. William assists global clients with transformational domestic and international mergers and acquisitions. He also leads Baker McKenzie’s North American corporate knowledge and training development program and has been an Illinois Super Lawyers Rising Star in Mergers and Acquisitions every year since 2012.

Practice Focus

William has extensive experience as lead M&A counsel assisting clients with complex and development strategy driven mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, including transactions involving venture capital or private equity backed businesses and start-ups, intellectual property driven transactions, carve out transactions and in-bound or outbound geographic expansions through acquisitions. His practice emphasizes cross border acquisitions and includes public mergers and acquisition transactions.

Representative Legal Matters

Advised McDonald's in its acquisition of Dynamic Yield, a website personalization and decision logic technology company based in Israel and its acquisition of Apprente, an artificial intelligence voice technology company based in silicon valley.
Advised FedEx in its USD 1.4 billion acquisition of Genco Distribution System, its USD 4.8 billion acquisition of TNT Express and other matters.
Advised Crane Co., a US public company, on its USD 800 million acquisition of Crane & Co., Inc., a private company supplier of secure banknotes.
Advised Safran in its USD 710 million sale of its Morpho Detection airport security business.
Advised Ecolab in its USD 8.1 billion merger with Nalco.
Advised Medtronic in connection with its USD 816 million acquisition of China Kanghui.
Advised the independent committee of the board of directors of Telvent with respect to Schneider Electric USD 2 billion tender offer for all outstanding shares of Telvent.
Advised Kao, a Japanese public company, in its acquisition of United States based Washing Systems, LLC from Gryphon Investors.
Advised Walgreens in its Specialty Pharmacy and Mail Service Pharmacy Joint Venture with Prime Therapeutics, in a transaction valued at USD 2 billion.
Advised Material Handling Systems in its sale to Thomas H. Lee and The Kenrich Group in its sale to HKA, each private employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) sale transactions.

Admissions

Illinois~United States (2007)

Education

Georgetown University Law Center (J.D. Honors) (2007)
Northwestern University (B.A. Legal Studies Honors) (2004)

Speaker, "So You Want to Buy a Tech Company", Connect on Tech Podcast, March 2020

Speaker, "Cross Border Rep and Warranty Insurance Coverage In Depth," AON Transaction Solutions Symposium, February 2020

Speaker/Faculty, "Closing Business Transactions - Practical Legal Considerations," Practicing Law Institute, November 2017, 2018 and 2019

Co-author, "The Hidden Value Of Carveout-Specific Due Diligence," Law360, February 2019

Author, "A Small World After All: R&W Insurance in Cross-Border M&A," Deal Lawyers, May-June 2018

Baker & McKenzie LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership organized under the laws of the State of Illinois (USA) and is a member of Baker & McKenzie International, a Verein organized under the laws of Switzerland.