Joe Verdesca, a Partner with the firm since 2000, concentrates in M&A and Private Equity transactions.

• Extensive financial services industry experience
• Insurance Focus - exposure in M&A, Private Equity and Restructuring contexts
• European cross-border expertise, enhanced by German fluency and practice overseas

Joe Verdesca is a partner in the firm’s Corporate practice. Mr. Verdesca has served in the firm’s Insurance practice group since 1993, in which he has been involved in numerous insurance company mergers & acquisitions, private equity investments, and reinsurance transactions, as well as IPOs, restructurings, privatizations, not-for-profit conversions and insurance market conduct matters.

Through a variety of insurance-related transactions, Mr. Verdesca has developed positive working relationships with the insurance departments of several states. His experience includes representation of clients before such departments at public hearings and other meetings.

Mr. Verdesca also counsels clients on the implications of new and emerging insurance legislation and regulation, including the sweeping provisions of the new financial reforms that affect insurance regulation at both the state and federal level. He serves on the firm’s Financial Regulatory Reform Working Group, providing insurance-related expertise within the larger context of financial industry regulatory reform.

Mr. Verdesca has participated in a number of prominent insurance-related M&A, private equity, restructuring and securities transactions, and named a "Best Lawyer" in the specialty of Insurance Law for the 2009 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Examples of Mr. Verdesca’s experience include:

• representation of AIG, Syncora (formerly Security Capital Assurance), and CIFG in their respective restructuring efforts;
• representation of GE Capital (as preferred equity holder) in connection with the restructuring of FGIC;
• representation of Goldman Sachs in connection with reinsurance and take-private transactions in the insurance arena;
• representation of UnitedHealth in connection with its acquisition of PacifiCare;
• representation of GE in connection with the sale of its property and casualty insurance divisions to Swiss Re, the sale of its Japanese life and US auto and homeowner insurance divisions to AIG, the sale of its financial guaranty insurance business to a consortium, the spin-off and initial public offering of Genworth, and the acquisition of Signature Financial/Marketing, Inc., First Colony Corporation, The Life Insurance Corporation of Virginia, Union Fidelity Life Insurance Company, AMEX Life Assurance Company, Harcourt General Insurance Inc., and Heritage Insurance Group, Inc.;
• the restructuring of Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield; and
• the acquisition and privatization by Swiss Re of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Insurance Facility.

Fluent in German and previously based in the firm’s Frankfurt office, Mr. Verdesca has facilitated cross border European private equity, M&A and securities transactions involving clients such as Texas Pacific Group, Fortress, Ewing Management Group, Lone Star, GE, Enron and IFCO. Examples of Mr. Verdesca's non-insurance related experience include involvement in numerous investment and disposition transactions for American Capital, Ltd., IFCO’s high-yield note offering, Enron’s sale of its European wind operations to GE, NBC’s acquisition of Telemundo, GE Capital’s acquisition of Heller Financial, American Airlines' acquisition of TWA, and Reuters’ acquisition of Bridge Information Systems, as well as numerous completed and aborted private equity investments by US investment groups in German companies.