International law firm Clifford Chance advised Nielsen Holdings N.V. (the portfolio company owned by KKR, Blackstone, Carlyle, AlpInvest, Centerview, Thomas H. Lee and Hellman and Friedman) in respect of its fully underwritten initial public offering and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering is being closely watched as a sign of investors’ appetite for private-equity backed IPOs. The offering values the company at approximately $8 billion.

International law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges represented Advent International in its £200 million investment in Towergate Partnership, Europe’s largest independently owned insurance intermediary. Towergate has acquired 177 underwriting and broking firms since being founded in 1997 and now employs over 4,500 staff across 100 offices in the United Kingdom. They also have a significant presence in financial services through Towergate Financial and John Charcol.

Watson, Farley & Williams, a leading international law firm, has recently advised Falck Renewables Plc on the financing and offtake arrangements for the second extension of a wind farm project owned by Millennium Wind Energy Limited located in the Scottish Highlands. Millennium Wind Energy Limited reached financial close with RBS to project finance the construction of a 15MW extension to its existing 50MW wind farm project on 21 December 2010. The project financing made use of the European Investment Bank’s UK onshore wind intermediated loan scheme and demonstrates Falck Renewables Plc’s continuing success in accessing debt markets to fund its growing pipeline.

Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, and Ramón y Cajal, a leading Spanish law firm, announced today that they have reaffirmed their mutual commitment to the alliance relationship they formed in 2007, which has enabled them to provide clients of both firms with access to top-tier legal services in the key business centers of Europe, Asia and the Americas. 

Genoptix, Inc. (Nasdaq: GXDX) announced today that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by Novartis. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Novartis will commence an all cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of Genoptix at USD$25.00 per share. The transaction implies, on a fully-diluted basis, a total equity value of approximately USD$470 million and an enterprise value of USD$330 million.

O’Melveny & Myers LLP represented Nektar Therapeutics (Nektar) in its underwritten public offering of 19 million shares of its common stock, raising approximately US$220.4 million.  The public offering closed on January 24, 2011.

After a year-long litigation culminating in a three-day evidentiary hearing, Morrison & Foerster LLP, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and the Public Counsel Law Center, today obtained the entry of an important court-ordered consent decree on behalf of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The plaintiffs, students at some of LAUSD’s most impacted schools, had sued the State and school district over LAUSD’s layoffs of thousands of teachers that fell disproportionately on the most challenged schools, causing such disruption that students’ were denied their constitutional right to equal educational opportunity. The consent decree incorporates broad and sweeping changes that will protect schools similar to those of the plaintiffs’ from hard-hitting reductions in force (RIFs).