Cadwalader Adds Corporate and M&A Lawyer Nick Ramphal

April 01, 2019

New York-based lawyer strengthens firm’s capabilities in public and private equity M&A transactions and corporate governance.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP today announced that the firm has added Corporate and M&A lawyer Nick Ramphal to the New York office.

Ramphal joins Cadwalader’s Corporate Group as a special counsel. He comes to the firm from Shearman & Sterling.

“Nick will be an invaluable addition to the firm as we continue to execute on our strategy to build our core Corporate practice with highly talented lawyers,” said Corporate Group co-chair Richard Brand. “Nick is very well regarded in the market, and the breadth of his experience in representing clients and boards of directors on a wide range of transactional, complex corporate governance and activism-related matters makes him a perfect complement to our practice.”

Ramphal’s practice focuses on public and private acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, corporate governance matters, takeover and defense preparedness and proxy contests. He has played a significant role in a number of recent transactions, regularly advising leading public companies and financial institutions as well as private equity firms, including KKR, Apollo, Blackstone and Apax, in some of their most significant and complex deals.

Ramphal’s recent high-profile assignments include advising Liberty Global in its $9.3 billion split-off of Liberty Latin America; Citigroup in the sale of the $34 billion asset management business of Citibanamex (Mexico) to BlackRock; the board of directors of Walter Investments (now Ditech) in connection with its settlement with two activist shareholders; the board of directors of Newell Rubbermaid in its $15.4 billion stock and cash merger with Jarden Corporation; the independent directors of Quintiles Transnational Holdings in its $17.6 billion “merger of equals” with IMS Health Holdings; Apollo Global Management in its $2.4 billion carve-out acquisition of McGraw-Hill Education; and KKR in the acquisition of a significant stake in Arbor Pharmaceuticals. He also has substantial experience in the technology sector, having represented Dell, eBay and Salesforce in several acquisitions, and in fintech and financial services, having advised Intercontinental Exchange, the owner and operator of the NYSE, in a sequence of recent acquisitions.

“I am thrilled to be joining Cadwalader,” Ramphal said. “The firm has a storied Corporate practice and boasts a highly adept and intellectually versatile team of corporate attorneys that are advising sophisticated clients on cutting-edge corporate law matters and transactions. I look forward to contributing to the expansion of the Corporate practice and continuing to provide exceptional counsel to our clients as part of such a dynamic, entrepreneurial and highly innovative group.”

Ramphal’s arrival is another important addition to Cadwalader’s Corporate Group. Over the past 12 months the firm welcomed back from a senior corporate role former partner Chris Cox and brought in M&A partner Stephen Fraidin, acquisition and leveraged finance partner Pearl Yuan-Garg and FinTech transactional partner Vivian Maese in New York and M&A special counsel Joanna Valentine in London.