Robert I. Townsend, III is a partner in Cravath’s Corporate Department. His practice focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Townsend’s clients have included Arch Chemicals, Brink’s, Brunswick, Cincinnati Bell, Clorox, Cummins, Frontier, J&J, Millipore, Nestlé, Olin, Pepsi Bottling Group, Sprint and Stanley Works.
Recent transactions include representing Johnson & Johnson in its acquisition of Synthes, Crucell, Mentor Corporation and Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, its acquisition of Pfizer’s consumer healthcare businesses, its takeover battle for Guidant and its acquisitions of ALZA, Scios and Conor Medsystems; Arch Chemicals in its acquisition by Lonza; Cincinnati Bell in its acquisition of CyrusOne; Millipore in its acquisition by Merck; Stanley Works in its acquisition of Black & Decker; Frontier in its acquisition of certain businesses from Verizon; Pepsi Bottling Group in its acquisition by PepsiCo; EMBARQ in its merger with CenturyTel; Nestlé in the sale of its stake in Alcon to Novartis; Sprint in its merger with Nextel; Brink’s in its proxy fights with Pirate Capital and MMI and its spin-off of Brink’s Home Security; PricewaterhouseCoopers in the sale of its consulting business to IBM; Clorox in its repurchase of shares from Henkel; Nestlé in its acquisition of Ralston Purina; and Cincinnati Bell in the sale of its directory business and its acquisition of IXC.
Mr. Townsend has been repeatedly cited as one of the country’s leading practitioners in mergers and acquisitions by, among others, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business from 2007 through 2011; Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business from 2007 through 2012; The Legal 500 in 2010 and 2011; IFLR1000: The Guide to the World’s Leading Financial Law Firms from 2007 through 2012; and The Best Lawyers in America from 2007 through 2012. In addition, Chambers remarked that Cravath’s M&A practice is “one of the foremost corporate firms in the country.” In 2010 and 2011, Mr. Townsend was named a leading lawyer for his transactional work in the telecoms and broadcast industry by The Legal 500. He was also named in the 2011 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America.
Mr. Townsend was born in New York, New York. He received an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1987 and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1990, where he was Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He joined Cravath in 1990 and became a partner in 1998.
Mr. Townsend may be reached by phone at 212-474-1964 or by email at rtownsend@cravath.com.