Latham Named M&A Group of the Year

Law360 has named Latham & Watkins a 2021 Mergers & Acquisitions Group of the Year, calling the firm an “M&A powerhouse.” The honor by Law360 is part of the legal news publication’s annual Practice Group of the Year awards, which recognize the law firms behind litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry in 2021. In particular, Law360 recognized Latham for representing Slack in its US$27.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce, Intuit in its US$12 billion acquisition of Mailchimp, and MGM in its pending acquisition by Amazon, representing the breadth of the firm’s platform, from both an industry and geographic perspective.

In a feature article published by Law360, Luke Bergstrom, Global Co-Chair of Latham’s M&A Practice, notes that the group is “firing on all cylinders globally,” a point driven home by Tad Freese, Managing Partner of Latham’s Bay Area offices, who notes that the firm has “really climbed to the top of the mountain” in terms of the volume and value of the M&A transactions handled by the firm across a broad array of industries and geographies.

Freese also commended his colleagues for the “sheer magnitude of deal activity that got done over the last year with almost everyone working remotely.” Bergstrom added that both the firm and the M&A Practice have remained focused on keeping all lawyers connected across the globe and across practice areas, and that has allowed Latham to easily pivot to meet client needs, citing the demand for SPAC work as an example, including advising on Ginkgo Bioworks’ US$15 billion de-SPAC, one of the largest such deals completed in 2021.