Biography
Adam O. Emmerich practices in Wachtell Lipton's corporate department, focusing primarily on
mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities law matters. His practice has
included a broad and varied representation of public and private corporations and other entities in
a variety of industries throughout the United States and globally, in connection with mergers and
acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, joint ventures and financing transactions. He also has
extensive experience in takeover defense.
Adam is recognized as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America by Lawdragon, as one of the
world’s leading M&A lawyers in Chambers, as an expert in each of M&A, Corporate
Governance and M&A in the real estate field by Who's Who Legal, and as an expert both in
M&A and in Corporate Governance by Euromoney Institutional Investor’s Expert Guides.
Among the transactions in which he has taken a leading role are: Prysmian Group in its $3
billion acquisition of General Cable, Broadcom Limited in its $146 billion proposal to acquire
Qualcomm, Medtronic plc in its $6.1 billion sale of a portion of its Patient Monitoring &
Recovery Division to Cardinal Health, Creative Artists Agency, most recently in a partnership
with CMC Capital Partners to form CAA China and a minority strategic investment by CMC in
CAA, and in a variety of other transactions, including the investment by TPG Capital to acquire
a controlling interest in CAA, Hologic in its $1.65 billion acquisition of Cynosure, Regency
Centers in its $15.6 billion merger with Equity One, Annaly Capital Management in its $1.5
billion acquisition of Hatteras Financial, Iscar and the Wertheimer family in the acquisition by
Berkshire Hathaway of an 80% interest in Iscar at a $5 billion enterprise value, and in Berkshire
Hathaway’s subsequent $2.05 billion purchase of the remaining 20% interest, XPO Logistics in
its $3 billion acquisition of Con-way and in its €3.24 billion acquisition of Norbert Dentressangle
S.A., Tim Hortons in its $12.2 billion combination with Burger King Worldwide, Covidien plc
in its $50 billion acquisition by Medtronic, Doosan Corporation in its acquisition of the assets of
ClearEdge Power in a Section 363 bankruptcy sale, Mallinckrodt plc in its $5.6 billion
acquisition of Questcor Pharmaceuticals, the Special Committee of Activision Blizzard in the
$8.2 billion purchase of shares of Activision from Vivendi, S.A., Deutsche Telekom and TMobile
USA in the combination of T-Mobile and MetroPCS Communications at a $30 billion
enterprise valuation and the agreed $39 billion sale of T-Mobile to AT&T, the board of Wyeth in
its $68 billion acquisition by Pfizer, Publicis Goupe in its $3.7 billion acquisition of Sapient
Corporation and in its later-abandoned $35.1 billion merger with Omnicom, the acquisition by
Wal-Mart of an interest in Seiyu in Japan and in transactions in Brazil, China, Puerto Rico and
the UK, and many others.
After serving as a law clerk to Judge Abner J. Mikva, of the United States Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit, Adam joined the firm in 1986 and was named partner in 1991.
He attended Swarthmore College and The University of Chicago, from which he received his
J.D. with honors. Adam is co-chair of the International Institute for the Study of Cross-Border
M&A, co-chair of the advisory board of New York University’s REIT Center for the Study of
Public Real Estate Companies, and a member of the American Law Institute.