George Casey

George Casey has extensive experience in U.S. domestic and cross-border M&A transactions, venture capital financing, strategic investments and joint venture transactions, representing U.S. and non-U.S. corporate and investment banking clients.

Casey is Global Co-Managing Partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP and a member of the firm’s Executive Group. He has been leading the Global Mergers & Acquisitions practice group of the firm since 2008.

In addition, he regularly advises Boards of Directors and management of companies on corporate governance and shareholder relations issues. From September 2002 until August 2005, Casey was based in London.

In 2016, The American Lawyer named Casey a “Dealmaker of the Year” and “Transatlantic Corporate Dealmaker.” He has also been recognized as one of the leading M&A practitioners by Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Legal 500 US, IFLR1000 and PLC Which Lawyer.

In addition to teaching at Penn since 2010, he gives regular guest lectures on U.S. M&A at l’École de Droit de la Sorbonne – Université Paris I.

Moreover, Casey represents some of the world’s largest companies in their significant public and private M&A transactions. He has represented:

* Dow Chemical in its business combination and separation transaction with DuPont; its $5 billion Reverse Morris Trust transaction with Olin; its negotiations of the $17.4 billion K-Dow joint venture with PIC of Kuwait and in the ensuing arbitration over PIC’s refusal to close in which Dow was awarded and received $2.2 billion in damages and costs; its $1.67 billion divestiture of Morton Salt to K+S Aktiengesellschaf; $1.63 billion divestiture of Styron to Bain Capital and in its divestiture of its global polypropylene business to Braskem S.A.;

* Novartis in its $3.9 billion tender offer acquisition of Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. (a French company listed on NASDAQ); in “white knight” offer for Aventis in connection with an unsolicited offer for Aventis by Sanofi; $2.5 billion auction sale of the Medical Nutrition business to Nestlé; and auction sale of its Nutrition & Santé business to a private equity buyer.
LyondellBasell N.V. in its $2.25 billion acquisition of A. Schulman, Inc. in a merger transaction;

* Liberty Global in its $9.3 billion spin-off of Liberty Latin America; its $8.2 billion acquisition of Cable & Wireless Communications plc; its $23.3 billion acquisition of Virgin Media in a stock and cash merger transaction and a related redomestication of the combined group to the UK under a UK public limited company; and on the creation of its tracking stock under English law for operations in Latin America and the Caribbean;

* Anglo American, a UK based global mining company, in its $5.4 billion sale to Mitsubishi of a 24.5% interest in Anglo American Sur, a Chilean copper mining company, and a subsequent settlement of a dispute, $2.8 billion sale of an interest in AA Sur to, and partnership agreements with, CODELCO, a Chilean state owned company, and Mitsui; its $1 billion sale of Moly-Cop (operating in Chile, Peru and Mexico) and AltaSteel of Canada to OneSteel, an Australian steel company; and a $18.7 billion acquisition of De Beers (through a scheme of arrangement under South African law);

* Nokia in its sale of the HERE digital mapping business to a consortium of Audi AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG; and $8.1 billion acquisition of NAVTEQ, a US public company;

* ArcelorMittal in its $1.1 billion sale of a 15% interest in a joint venture comprising ArcelorMittal’s Labrador Trough iron ore mining and infrastructure assets in Canada to a consortium led by POSCO of Korea and China Steel Corporation of Taiwan;

* Thomson Reuters in its $7.75 billion divestiture of Thomson Learning to Apax and OMERS, its divestitures of BarBri, Prometric and NETg and acquisition of MarkMonitor;

* Pechiney, a French public company, in the initially unsolicited and later recommended $6.7 billion public offer for its shares by Alcan (a French and US law transaction);

* Novartis in the $2.5 billion sale of its worldwide medical nutrition business to Nestlé; and in its “white knight” bid for Aventis Axel Springer, a German media company, in connection with a proposed acquisition of ProSiebenSat.1 Media (a German law transaction);

* Arcelor in its $4.7 billion unsolicited offer for Dofasco in Canada;

* AngloGold, a South African company, in its $1.9 billion acquisition of Ashanti, a Ghanaian gold mining company (a Ghanaian law transaction executed through a first scheme of arrangement process in Ghana);

* Instrumentarium, a Finnish public company, in its $2.3 billion acquisition by GE (a Finnish law transaction); and

* Bell Canada International and other shareholders in the $1 billion sale of their interest in Hansol M.com to Korea Telecom (a South Korean law transaction).

Casey is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Law & Economics; a member of the Editorial Board of The M&A Lawyer; a member of the International Advisory Committee of Revue Trimestrielle de Droit Financier/Corporate Finance and Capital Markets Law Review, Paris, France; a member of the Business Law Partner Advisory Board of Thomson Reuters; and was a speaker on “Change of Control Transactions” at the SEC International Institute for Securities Market Development.