Peter S. Wilson is a partner in Cravath’s Corporate Department. His practice includes mergers and acquisitions, as well as general corporate work for a variety of corporate clients.
Mr. Wilson’s clients have included AXA, IBM, RHJ International, Royal Dutch/Shell, RWE, Schering and Unilever, as well as the private equity funds of Ripplewood Holdings LLC and Lightyear Capital LLC. Recently, he represented Lightyear in connection with its acquisition of Clarion Partners, IBM in connection with its acquisition of Sterling Commerce from AT&T and Ripplewood Partners II, L.P. as lead member of an investor group in connection with its acquisitions of Interstate Bakeries and Reader’s Digest.
Other significant recent transactions include representing:
- IBM in its acquisitions of OpenPages, Inc. and Storwize, Inc.
- A special committee of the Board of Mobile TeleSystems in its acquisition of Comstar UTS;
- RHJI in the sale of D&M Holdings;
- Schering in its acquisition by Bayer AG;
- Ripplewood in its acquisition of Shaklee from Yamanouchi and the sale of American Guidance Systems to Pearson;
- Royal Dutch/Shell in the acquisition of Pennzoil/Quaker State;
- RWE in the acquisition and subsequent disposition of American Water Works, the U.S. aspects of the acquisition of Innogy and the sale of its majority shareholding in CONSOL Energy;
- AXA in the acquisition of the minority interest in AXA Financial (formerly Equitable Life) and the acquisition of MONY;
- Unilever in the acquisitions of Bestfoods, Slim•Fast and TIGI and the sale of various Bestfoods’ brands; and
- Paine Webber Group in connection with its sale to UBS A.G.
Mr. Wilson was named a leader in International Trade and Finance Law by The Best Lawyers in America in 2012. He was also recognized by The Legal 500 for his work in M&A: Mega-Deals in 2009 and Capital Markets: Global Offerings in 2010.
Mr. Wilson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He received a B.Comm., with great distinction, from McGill University in 1976 and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1979. Mr. Wilson joined Cravath in 1979 and became a partner in 1987.
Mr. Wilson may be reached by phone at 212-474-1767 or by email at pwilson@cravath.com.