Howard Chatzinoff is the co-chair of Weil, Gotshal & Manges' Mergers & Acquisitions practice. He has a wide-ranging corporate and securities law practice, with particular emphasis on public and private merger and acquisition transactions, dispositions, spinoffs and joint ventures. He counsels a diverse range of clients and boards of directors on governance, fiduciary duty, corporate control and other corporate and strategic matters. He also regularly represents several of the bulge-bracket investment banks in their merger and acquisition advisory activities.
Recent Experience:
- NBC Universal and parent General Electric in GE's $37.25 billion joint venture with Comcast for ownership of NBC Universal and Comcast's cable channels and regional sports networks
- Citadel Broadcasting in its $2.5 billion acquisition by Cumulus Media
- Cedar Fair in its proposed acquisition by an affiliate of Apollo Global Management (terminated)
- Cardinal Health in its spinoff of CareFusion
- NYMEX Holdings, Inc. in connection with its acquisition by CME Group, Inc.
- CBS in the acquisition of CNET Networks, Inc.; its separation from Viacom; its joint venture with Warner Bros. Entertainment to form The CW Network; its programming and distribution arrangements with Westwood One and its acquisitions of College Sports Television (CSTV) and CBS/King World Productions and, prior thereto, Westinghouse in its acquisition of CBS
- General Electric in its sales of GE Plastics to Saudi Basic Industries Corporation and of GE Insurance Solutions to Swiss Re; its acquisitions of Zenon Environmental, SBS Technologies, Ionics, Edwards Systems Technology, InVision Technologies, OSi Specialties and BetzDearborn; its IPO of Genworth Financial and its sale of Genpact
- NBC Universal in its acquisition (together with Bain Capital and Blackstone Group) of The Weather Channel; its joint venture with News Corp. and Providence Equity to create Hulu and its acquisitions of Oxygen, ivillage.com and Telemundo
- Houghton Mifflin in the sale of its college division to Cengage Learning
- msystems in its sale to Sandisk
- Molson in its merger with Coors
- Hughes Supply in its merger with Home Depot
- LendingTree in its merger with IAC/lnterActive Corp.
- Interactive Search Holdings (iWon) in its sale to Ask Jeeves
- Qwest Communications in its proposed acquisition of Allegiance Telecom
Mr. Chatzinoff is listed in International Financial Law Review’s Guide to the World’s Leading Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyers, is recognized in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and was named by Lawdragon.com in May 2010 as one of the 500 best lawyers in the United States.
Mr. Chatzinoff is active in the New York community, serving as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of PENCIL, an organization that inspires innovation in NYC's public schools through private-public partnerships.