John H. Butler

JOHN BUTLER focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, restructurings and general corporate representations. He represents corporate, private equity and hedge fund investors on transactional matters across a range of industries, including energy, financial services, investment funds, life sciences, insurance, real estate, technology and media, sports and entertainment.

John’s public company representations include mergers and acquisitions, carve-outs, tender offers, proxy contests and activist situations, spin-offs and restructurings, and include both friendly and unsolicited transactions. He also regularly represents boards of directors in connection with related party transactions and special committee assignments.

In October 2007, The New York Times listed John as one of the leading dealmakers on Wall Street under 40 years of age.

Representative public company transactions include:

• Genuine Parts Company’s “Reverse Morris Trust” proposed spinoff and merger of its SP Richards division with Essendant and the subsequent topping by for Essendant made by Staples, Inc.
• Fogo De Chão’s sale to Rhone Capital
• HRG Group’s merger with Spectrum Brands
• Guggenheim’s sale of its ETFs business to Invesco
• Nationstar Mortgage’s merger with WMIH
• BioReference Laboratories in its merger with OPKO Health
• Blount International’s sale to a private equity consortium
• Sterling Financial’s recapitalization transaction
• Roche’s “going private” acquisition of Genentech
• Verisk Analytics’ recapitalization and IPO
• Huntington Bancshares’ acquisition of Sky Financial
• Pepsi’s going-private acquisitions of its two anchor bottlers, PepsiAmericas and Pepsi Bottling Group
• Cypress Semiconductor’s hostile approach to Integrated Silicon Solutions
• The Royal Bank of Scotland’s acquisition of Charter One Financial
• The St. Paul Companies’ merger with Travelers Property Casualty
• Pharmacia’s merger with Monsanto
• Patriot Coal’s spinoff from Peabody Energy
• Compaq’s restructuring of its investment in CMGI and Navisite
• Delta Air Lines’ tender offer for Comair and the restructuring of Republic Airlines
• Citigroup’s purchase of Banamex
• The merger of Medical Manager, CareInsite and WebMD
• First Advantage’s purchase of certain business units from First American

Representative “private” company transactions include:

• Numerous transactions and investments for Guggenheim Partners and its principals
• Numerous private equity transactions, investments, joint ventures and proxy contests for Axon Capital
• Pattern Energy’s strategic partnership with PSP Investments and numerous “drop down” acquisitions of wind farm projects
• Genuine Parts Company’s acquisition of Alliance Automotive Group
• Numerous acquisitions, strategic partnerships and collaborations for Roche
• Axel Springer’s purchase of eMarketer
• Numerous investments for Interfunds Management
• The restructuring of the revenue-sharing arrangements for the Spirits of St. Louis Basketball Club
• Tesco’s sale of its U.S. “Fresh & Easy” business
• The sale of minority interests in the New York Mets, the purchase of the Syracuse Chiefs by the Mets, and matters relating to SNY (the NY Mets regional sports network)
• Investments by several individuals in the Chicago Cubs
• York Capital’s investments in Hendricks Coal and Enovix
• Colt Manufacturing in its merger with Colt Defense
• AloStar Bank of Commerce’s recapitalization
• Corsair’s investment in Tamilnad Mercantile Bank
• The restructuring of Larchmont Resources by a lender group
• Deutsche Post’s purchase of Quik-Pak  
• The restructuring of Venoco, Inc. by a lender group
• CSFB Private Equity’s investments in Segway

John has also represented a number of financial institutions in connection with advisory assignments.

*The above matters were handled by John prior to joining Sidley.