Christian E. Pilhofer

CHRISTIAN PILHOFER focuses his practice on transactional employee benefits and executive compensation matters as well as ERISA and fiduciary counseling. He advises public and private clients on the employee benefits and executive compensation aspects of private equity transactions, strategic M&A (including carve-out transactions), recapitalization, reorganizations, and financings and assists clients with structuring and negotiating executive employment and separation arrangements, equity and cash incentive programs, deferred compensation, and other benefit arrangements. 

Christian also advises investment managers, pension plan investors, insurance companies, and other financial institutions on ERISA fiduciary duties, prohibited transactions, plan investments, and governance matters. His experience includes structuring ERISA-compliant investment vehicles, developing compliance procedures, counseling plan fiduciaries and investment committees, conducting fiduciary audits and training, and negotiating investment management and service provider agreements.

Recent matters in which Christian has been involved in, among others, include:

• GE HealthCare (NASDAQ: GEHC) in its US$945 million acquisition of radiopharmaceutical company SOFIE Biosciences.
• CDW (NASDAQ: CDW), a leading provider of information technology solutions, in its acquisition of Lovelytics, a data and AI services firm.
• Gates Industrial Corporation plc (NYSE: GTES) in its redomiciliation from England and Wales to Bermuda through a statutory scheme of arrangement approved by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales.
• Mas Restaurant Group, a franchisee of Taco Bell restaurants in the Houston, Texas and Columbus, Ohio metropolitan areas, in the sale of its 43 Ohio locations to Southpaw.
• CBOE Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE: CBOE), a global exchange operator focused on equity derivatives, in the US$300 million sale of its Australian and Canadian equity exchanges to TMX Group Limited.
• Sensei Biotherapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNSE), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of next-generation therapeutics for cancer patients, in its acquisition of Faeth Therapeutics Inc.
• Ariel Investments in connection with Project Level, which raised US$250 million in committed capital a year after the platform’s launch, creating one of the largest dedicated pools of institutional capital focused on opportunities across women’s sports, including teams, leagues, and sports-adjacent businesses.
• RoundTable Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry, in its partnership and investment in Colorescience.
• Lux Capital in connection with the closing of its new and significantly oversubscribed venture capital fund, Lux Ventures IX (Lux IX), which raised more than US$1.5 billion in committed capital.