Paul D. Tosetti is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Latham & Watkins and is a member of the Corporate Department. He served for 10 years as the co-chair of the firm's Global Mergers and Acquisitions Group.
In his practice, Mr. Tosetti focuses on the acquisition of companies on both a solicited and an unsolicited basis, and has extensive expertise in the private equity arena. He has been involved in transactions for a broad range of businesses, including the airline, pharmaceutical, e-commerce, logistics, television broadcasting, health care, petroleum, motion picture, consumer retail, electronics, gaming, apparel, real estate and hospitality industries. Mr. Tosetti has also written and lectured on a variety of corporate and securities law matters.
Over the years, Mr. Tosetti has represented some of the nation's most sophisticated transactional clients, including Oracle Corporation, Allergan Inc., Activision Blizzard, Amgen Inc., Hilton Hotels Corporation, Beckman Coulter, Inc., Broadcom, Telemundo Group, Inc., ShopNBC, Arden Realty, Inc. and URS Corporation. He also regularly represents a number of investment and merchant banking firms.
Mr. Tosetti was cited by Lawdragon Magazine in 2008 as one of the country's leading 500 attorneys, by Chambers USA as one of Southern California's top four Corporate/M&A lawyers, by the 2008 Legal 500 US guide for his work in M&A, and by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of the area's leading corporate and transactional lawyers in their "Who's Who in L.A. Law." In polls conducted by Los Angeles Magazine, Mr. Tosetti was named as one of Southern California's top 100 lawyers in 2004 and 2005, and in the July 1989 issue of The National Law Journal, he was named as one of America's Top 50 Young Lawyers.
Prior to entering the practice of law, Mr. Tosetti served as a law clerk to the late Hon. Edward Allen Tamm, Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Chief Judge for the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals.
Mr. Tosetti also practices actively in the area of sports and entertainment law, with experience ranging from the negotiation of television contracts to the organization of new sports leagues. Mr. Tosetti acted as outside counsel to World Cup USA 1994, Inc., the organization responsible for coordinating the international soccer championships, which were held in America in 1994 for the first time. He also acts as counsel to Major League Soccer, LLC, the country's Division One soccer league, and to the US Bid Committee, the organization seeking to return the Soccer World Cup to the United States in 2018 or 2022.
Mr. Tosetti's recent representative transactions include:
- Beckman Coulter, Inc. in its acquisition of the lab-based diagnostics business of Olympus Corporation
- Sonova Holding AG in its acquisition of Advanced Bionics Corporation
- Oracle Corporation in its acquisition of BEA Systems, Inc.
- URS Corporation in its acquisition of Washington Group International, Inc.
- Beckman Coulter, Inc. in its proposed acquisition of Biosite Incorporated
- Keystone Automotive Industries, Inc. in its acquisition by LKQ Corporation
- Jack Nicklaus and Golden Bear International, Inc. in the negotiation of a strategic relationship with New York Private Bank and Trust
- Citigroup in its capacity as financial advisor to Wild Oats Market in its acquisition by Whole Foods Market, Inc.
- Arden Realty, Inc. in its sale to General Electric Commercial Real Estate
- Easton Sports, Inc. in its sale to Riddell Bell Holdings
- Intermix Media, Inc., the parent company of MySpace.com, in its sale to News Corp.
- Hilton Hotels Corporation in its bid for ITT
- Telemundo Group, Inc. in connection with its sale to a consortium of four firms.
- Beckman Instruments, Inc. in connection with its acquisition of Coulter Corporation
- Saban Capital Group in connection with its acquisition of a majority of the voting rights in Pro Sieben Sat. 1 AG, the largest private television network in Germany
- Idealab in connection with its investment in Overture Services, Inc., and Overture's sale to Yahoo! Inc.
- Sony Pictures Digital in its acquisition of the desktop software business of Sonic Foundry, Inc.
- Nestlé SA's US ice cream business, Nestlé Ice Cream Company LLC, in its acquisition of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc.
- Amgen Inc. in its acquisition of Immunex Corporation
- Flipside, Inc., an indirect, partially owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, in its acquisition of Uproar Inc.
- Sunrise Medical, Inc. in its sale to an affiliate of Vestar Capital Partners and Park Avenue Equity Partners
- Telelogic AB in its acquisition of Continuus Software, Inc.
- Veterinary Centers of America in its sale to an affiliate of Leonard Green & Partners
- GreatDomains.com in its sale to Verisign