Practice Areas & Industries: Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Our tax lawyers regularly advise clients on the tax aspects of corporate reorganizations, acquisitions, spin-offs and other dispositions, joint ventures, financings and restructurings. These transactions frequently involve large multinational businesses and raise complex domestic and multinational tax issues. Indeed, tax considerations often determine the form, and occasionally the viability, of contemplated transactions. The tax group is also involved in new financial products and innovative real estate transactions. The firm's tax department is considered preeminent in all the areas in which it is involved. Its members regularly publish and lecture on emerging tax issues and actively participate in the work of tax policy groups, such as the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association and the International Fiscal Association.

Examples of major recent transactions in which the firm's tax expertise has played a formative role include the restructuring and initial public offering of Lazard (using a non-U.S. entity taxed as a partnership); Lucent Technologies combination with Alcatel; the acquisition of Iscar by Berkshire Hathaway; the acquisition by Apax, Apollo, Madison Dearborn and Permira of Intelsat, and the acquisition by Intelsat of PanAmSat; Ameriprise Financial's offering of 60-year junior subordinated notes; JPMorgan Chase's exchange of its corporate trust business for Bank of New York's retail banking business; Public Storage's acquisition of Shurgard Storage Centers; Morgans Hotel Group's acquisition of Hard Rock Hotels; the conversion of the New York Stock Exchange into a for-profit public company and its simultaneous acquisition of Archipelago; the acquisition of Albertsons by SUPERVALU; and the acquisition by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds and Onex Real Estate of Town & Country.