Stephen M Kotran

Practice Areas

Corporate Governance, Financial Services, Fintech, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Insurance, Mergers & Acquisitions, M&A Financial Advisory and Valuation, Private Equity

Career

A recognized leader in M&A, Steve Kotran is known for guiding high-profile buyers, sellers, and financial advisors on global and complex corporate transactions across diverse industries. Steve Kotran is a partner in the Firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions and Financial Services Groups. He is Head of the Firm’s Global M&A Financial Advisory and Valuation Group, Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, North America, Co-Head of the Firm’s Global Private Equity Group and Co-Head of the Firm’s Global Insurance Practice. He represents buyers, sellers, special committees and other principals as well as financial advisers in M&A transactions in a wide range of industries, including negotiated and hostile acquisitions, negotiated sales of private companies, subsidiaries and divisions, transactions involving SPACs, private equity transactions, leveraged buy-outs, formation of joint ventures and asset sales. Mr. Kotran was named one of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America for 2026. In addition, he has been named for more than 20 years as a leading M&A, private equity and insurance transactional lawyer by numerous directories, including IFLR1000, Lawdragon 500, Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal), The Legal 500, The Best Lawyers in America and New York Super Lawyers.

Mr. Kotran taught an M&A transactions course at Columbia Law School for many years. He also has lectured at NYU, Stanford, UPenn, UVA, Fordham and other law schools. He has been a frequent speaker on M&A and corporate governance matters at professional programs sponsored by the ABA, the Practical Law Institute and numerous other organizations. He co-founded the Financial Advisory Task Force of the M&A Committee of the ABA.

Clients include: American Equity Life, Ardea Partners, Bank of America, Barclays, Centerview, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Duff & Phelps, Evercore, FT Partners, Goldman Sachs, Greenhill & Co., Guggenheim Securities, Houlihan Lokey, Insight Enterprises, JPMorgan, Lincoln Partners, LionTree, Macquarie Capital, Moelis & Co., Morgan Stanley, Nomura Securities, PJT Partners, Rothschild, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., UBS Investment Bank, Wells Fargo Securities and other investment banks in their capacity as financial advisor in connection with more than 1,100 completed transactions.

Professional Memberships

American Bar Foundation, Corporate and M&A Advisory Board of Practical Law, the National Council of the American Enterprise Institute, President’s Council of the National Constitution Center, Harvard Alumni For Free Speech and The Jefferson Council (UVA)

Personal

University of Virginia Law (JD, Order of the Coif, 1990); Harvard (BA, 1985). Law clerk, Honorable Edward R. Becker, US Court of Appeals Third Circuit, 1990-1991