Biography

Craig Adas is Managing Partner of the Silicon Valley office and a member of the Corporate Department. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and securities, with particular emphasis on private and public acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, dispositions and joint ventures. He regularly advises boards of directors on governance, fiduciary duty, corporate opportunity and other strategic matters. He also represents investment banks in connection with M&A transactions.
Craig has been named a “California Trailblazer” for his work in Private Equity and M&A by The Recorder. He has also been recognized as a leading lawyer for both Corporate/M&A and Private Equity in California by Chambers USA, with clients noting his “very pragmatic approach to transactions” as well as his ability to “take into account not just legal issues but also business issues.” Craig is recognized as a “Highly Regarded” lawyer for M&A in California by IFLR1000. He is included in Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Dealmakers in America” list. Craig has been named to the Daily Journal’s list of Top Private Equity Lawyers and in 2017, The Recorder named Craig a “Trusted Advisor” for Mergers & Acquisitions.
Experience
- Arrowhead Engineered Products, Inc. (a portfolio company of Genstar Capital) in various acquisitions, including Red Hawk, LLC, Western Power Sports, LLC and Bihr, N.V.
- Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. in its $125 million acquisition of Dropworks, Inc.
- Boyd Corporation in its acquisitions of Action Fabricators and Aavid Thermalloy.
- Chevron U.S.A. Inc. in its joint venture with Mercuria Energy Trading Inc. to acquire and operate American Natural Gas LLC and subsequent acquisition of Mercuria’s interests.
- Conversica (a portfolio company of Kennet Partners, Toba Capital and Providence Equity) in its acquisition of substantially all the assets of Intelligens and various equity financings.
- Core-Mark Holding Company in various acquisitions, including Farner-Bocken Co., Pine State Convenience, Forrest City Grocery Co., Finkle Distributors and J.T. Davenport & Sons and its $2.5 billion sale to Performance Food Group.
- CPP Investments, as a member of a consortium with Advent International and Permira Advisers, among others, in the consortium's over $14 billion take-private of McAfee Corporation.
- CPU Technology (a portfolio company of The Carlyle Group) in its sale to The Boeing Company.
- Dell in various growth equity investments.
- Evercore in connection with Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity; the sale of HTC’s smartphone business; and Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of Demisto.
- Genstar Capital:
- together with TA Associates in the acquisition of Orion Advisor Solutions and the simultaneous acquisition of Brinker Capital.
- as principal selling stockholder in a $282 million secondary offering of 5.75 million shares of Palomar Holdings, Inc. and a $220 million secondary offering of 6 million shares of Palomar Holdings, Inc.
- in its acquisitions of Abracon LLC, Arrowhead Engineered Products, Inc., Marcone Appliance Parts Center, Inc., Truck-Lite Company (n/k/a Clarience Technologies, LLC), Boyd, Infinite RF Holdings, L-Com, Ohio Transmission Corporation, Pretium Packaging, Power Products Holdings and Tecomet.
- in its sales of Infinite Electronics, Inc., Boyd Corporation, the Global Marine and Mobile Business of Power Products Holdings, Tecomet, Evolution1, Pretium Packaging, LLC, ECM Industries, LLC and of its remaining shares of Palomar Holdings, Inc.
- Getty Images in its “go-private” transaction and its subsequent sale by Hellman & Freidman to The Carlyle Group.
- Golden Gate Capital in the formation of Stonehill Environmental Partners and in Stonehill's acquisition of the assets of Waterfield Midstream.
- HCL Technologies Limited and Sumeru Equity Partners in the acquisition of Actian Corporation.
- Infinite Electronics, Inc. (a portfolio company of Genstar Capital) in is acquisition of Smiths Interconnect’s Microwave Telecoms Business from Smiths Group plc and the sale of its Kaelus Brands subsidiary.
- Macquarie Capital in its joint venture with Dickey Publishing to acquire Modern Luxury Media.
- Marcone Appliance Parts Center, Inc. (a portfolio company of Genstar Capital) in its acquisitions of Munch's Supply and Professional Plumbing Group.
- Maxim Integrated Products in various acquisitions, including Scintera Networks, Mobilygen Corp., Innova Card and the Wireless Central and Secured Transactions business lines of ZILOG and its $27.5 billion sale to Analog Devices, Inc.
- Micron in its acquisition of Tidal Systems, the sale of Micron’s Lehi, UT fab for $900 million, the sale of Lexar and Micron’s $100 billion mega-fab in upstate New York.
- Sequoia Capital in various growth equity investments.
- Silver Lake Sumeru in various acquisitions, including Velocity Technology Enterprises (n/k/a Velocity Technology Solutions, Inc.), ForeFlight LLC and Titan Technology Partners Ltd. and its sales of Velocity Technology Solutions, Inc. and Foreflight, LLC.
- SiriusXM in its acquisition of a minority stake in SoundCloud Ltd.
- Sumeru Equity Partners in its $300 million acquisition of beqom SA (a portfolio company of Goldman Sachs and Eurazeo); its acquisition of SocialChorus, Inc.; and SocialChorus, Inc. in its merger with Dynamic Signal Inc.
- Symantec Corp. in various acquisitions, including LiveOffice LLC and GuardianEdge Technologies.
- Velocity Technology Solutions, Inc. (a portfolio company of Silver Lake Sumeru) in its acquisition of Mercury Technology Group, Inc.
- Vonage in various acquisitions, including Nexmo, Telesphere Networks Ltd., Vocalocity, Inc., SimpleSignal, Inc. and iCore Networks.
- Yahoo in various acquisitions, including Flurry, Inc., MSKYNET, ThumbsUp Labs and Tomfoolery.
Guides and Resources, Awards and Recognition, Speaking Engagements, Firm News & Announcements, Latest Thinking
Awards and Recognition
- Craig Adas Named a “California Trailblazer” Award Brief — The Recorder
- Craig Adas Named a "Leading" Lawyer for Corporate/M&A: Private Equity in California Award Brief — Chambers USA
- Craig Adas Named a "Leading" Lawyer for Corporate/M&A in Northern California Award Brief — Chambers USA
- Craig Adas Recognized as a “Highly Regarded” Lawyer for M&A in California Award Brief — IFLR1000
- Craig Adas Named Among the "500 Leading Dealmakers in America" Award Brief — Lawdragon
Firm News & Announcements
- Ten Weil Partners Named 2024 Leading Dealmakers in America by Lawdragon Firm Announcement — October 30, 2023
- Weil Advised Advent International and CPP Investments in Investor Group’s Over $14B Acquisition of McAfee Deal Brief — March 01, 2022
Latest Thinking
- SEC Adopts No Fault Executive Compensation Clawback Rules for Listed Companies: Covers “little r” Restatements Alert — Governance & Securities — By P.J. Himelfarb, Lyuba Goltser, Howard B. Dicker and Shira Barron — PDF — November 01, 2022
- SEC Partially Rescinds Its Rules Relating to the Provision of Proxy Voting Advice Alert — Governance & Securities — By Catherine T. Dixon and Howard B. Dicker — PDF — August 15, 2022
- SEC Proposes Changes to Shareholder Proposal Rule 14a-8 Alert — Governance & Securities — By Adé Heyliger — PDF — July 22, 2022
- SEC Targets “Greenwashing” by Investment Funds: More Proposals on the SEC ESG Agenda Alert — Governance & Securities — By Lyuba Goltser, Adé Heyliger, Robert Stern, David E. Wohl and John H. Bradshaw — PDF — June 21, 2022
- SEC Proposes Broad Changes for SPACs and De-SPACs Alert — Governance & Securities — By Frank R. Adams, James R. Griffin, Adé Heyliger, Alexander D. Lynch and Steven Bentsianov — PDF — April 08, 2022