Ethan A Klingsberg

Ethan co-heads Freshfields' US Corporate practice in New York. His practice comprises M&A, public company board and independent committee (e.g., Qualtrics), activism-response, governance, corporate, and SEC matters. His M&A practice covers mergers of mature companies, acquisitions of start-ups, and separations by spin-off, split-off, reverse morris trust, carve-out IPO, and divestitures. He regularly helps companies prevail against, manage, and work with “activist stockholders,” including in scenarios where these stockholders have board seats, are seeking board seats, and do not have board seats. In addition, he advises boards and controlling shareholder groups on creative capital structures and governance and liquidity arrangements, including in connection with IPOs (e.g., Pinterest and Levi Strauss & Co.), recapitalizations and the creation of autonomous subsidiaries. Ethan is recognized among M&A “MVPs,” “Dealmakers of the Year” and “Legends” by Law360, The American Lawyer, Legal 500 US, IFLR1000 and Law Dragon, respectively. He’s led some of the most high profile M&A projects in recent years, including multibillion dollar transactions (Google/Mandiant, Ericsson/Vonage, BP/Archaea Energy, Cargill/Sanderson, Saint-Gobain/GCP Applied Technologies, Stanley Black & Decker/Securitas); AstraZeneca/Alexion; and numerous LBOs (e.g., Dun & Bradstreet, Keane, Burger King).