Victor Ma

Freshfields served as issuer’s counsel to Zymergen Inc. on its IPO as a public benefit corporation on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The IPO values the company in excess of $4 billion. The company sold $575 million of shares of common stock, including all shares subject to the underwriters’ greenshoe option, in the offering which closed on April 26, 2021. Zymergen, a San Francisco Bay Area-based biofacturing company, is a client of Freshfields on a spectrum of capital markets, corporate, compensation and benefits, M&A, joint venture, licensing, IP, tax and regulatory matters. The company uses a combination of software, biology, chemistry and automation to develop and manufacture bio-based breakthrough products and materials that deliver value to customers in a broad range of industries. More details about the transaction can be found here. The Freshfields team was led by corporate partners Sarah Solum and Pamela Marcogliese, associates Sherrie Quinn and Max Neumann, and law clerks Joyce Yeo and Salman Almutawa and senior corporate paralegal Sangeetha Rao, as well as by corporate partner Ethan Klingsberg, litigation partner Boris Feldman, counsel Elizabeth Bieber and associates Lucy Lei and Victor Ma. Employee benefits partner Maj Vaseghi and senior associate Sarah Ghulamhussain led on all executive compensation and equity award plan matters. Tech transactions and data privacy partner Menachem Kaplan, special counsel Peter Jaffe and associate Marissa Yu handled IP and privacy matters. Tax advice was provided by partner Robert Scarborough and counsel Dennis Caracristi. CFIUS and trade compliance advice was provided by partners Aimen Mir and Nabeel Yousef and associate Amy Cattle. The lawyers involved span the Silicon Valley, New York and Washington, DC offices of the firm. ENDS About Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is a global elite law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world's leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments on groundbreaking and business-critical mandates. Our 2,800-plus lawyers deliver results worldwide through our own offices and alongside leading local firms. Our commitment, local and multinational expertise, and business know-how means our clients rely on us when it matters most. Freshfields is ranked by Chambers Global in Band 1 across the six areas of antitrust, corporate/M&A, litigation, international arbitration, tax, and public international law. For more information visit Freshfields.us. This material is for general information only and is not intended to provide legal advice. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Apr 26

2 min

Freshfields guided JD Sports Fashion plc to the closing of its all-cash acquisition of NASDAQ-listed Hibbett, Inc. The transaction was announced on April 23, 2024, and closed on July 25, 2024, following the receipt of regulatory and Hibbett stockholder approvals. More information is available here. The Freshfields team is led out of New York by M&A partners Paul Tiger and Tomas Rua and associates Victor Ma, Casey Hagen and Connor Lang and included London M&A partners Claire Wills and Andrew Hutchings, senior associate Ellie Dunne and associate Amadita Garcia on UK corporate matters. Additional team members, all based in the U.S., included partner Lori Goodman, senior associate Andrew Herman and associate Sonia Bennett on executive compensation and employee benefits matters; partner Meghan Rissmiller, senior advisor Christine Wilson, counsel Laura Onken, senior associate Vadim Egoul and associate L.B. McCaskey on antitrust matters; counsel Jeremiah Nelson on real estate matters; partner Kyle Lakin on finance matters; partner Mena Kaplan on intellectual property matters; partners Christine Lyon and Brock Dahl and associate Christine Chong on data privacy and cybersecurity matters; partner Claude Stansbury and associate Hannah Golden on tax matters; and partner Stephanie Brown Cripps and associate Keian Razipour on compliance matters.

Jul 25

1 min

Freshfields is representing América Móvil in the sale of Claro Panama to Cable & Wireless Panama, an affiliate of Liberty Latin America.  The transaction was announced on September 15 and is expected to close during the first quarter of calendar year 2022. More details about the transaction can be found here and here. The Freshfields team was led by partners Ethan Klingsberg and Andrea Merediz Basham and associates Max Sanders, Victor Ma and Borja Coz on corporate/M&A; partner Claude Stansbury and associate Brendan Counihan on tax; partner Menachem Kaplan and counsel Brock Dahl on IP and data matters; partner Maj Vaseghi and associate Jeffery Anand on employee benefits and executive compensation; partner Kyle Lakin on finance; and counsel Stephanie Brown Cripps on compliance matters. ENDS

Sep 15

1 min

Freshfields is advising Swedish engineering multinational Sandvik AB on its acquisition of DWFritz Automation, Inc., a global provider of precision metrology, inspection and assembly solutions for advanced manufacturing. DWFritz is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon and has offices in France and China. The transaction was announced July 12, 2021, and is expected to close in the second half of 2021. Terms were not disclosed. Learn more about the transaction here. The Freshfields team is led by New York M&A partner Paul Tiger and associate Victor Ma, with support from associates Tommy Lair and Brayden Koslowsky along the way, and summer associate Casey Hagen. Tax advice was provided by partner Claude Stansbury and associate Brendan Counihan. Partner Lori Goodman and associates Jeff Anand and Lina Zhu are advising on employee benefits and employment matters. Intellectual property matters are being handled by partner Mena Kaplan and associates Marissa Yu and Danny Spencer, with support from paralegal Chelsea Cantos and extern Mili Astesiano. Partner Kyle Lakin and associates Lacey Nemergut and Sarah Al Salem are providing advice on finance. Counsel Peter Jaffe is advising on data privacy matters. Advice on various specialist and local law aspects was provided from our Paris office by partner Gwen Senlanne (employee benefits) and associates Célia Kirren (employee benefits) and Manon Serrus (corporate); our China offices by partners Yuxin Shen (corporate) and Alan Wang (corporate) and associates Fan Li (employee benefits) and Tracy Gu (corporate) and our Germany offices by partners Nicholas Günther (corporate), Christoph Werkmeister (data privacy) and Theresa Ehlen (data privacy) and associate Annabelle Hamelin (data privacy). The regulatory and compliance workstreams, which span multiple countries and regimes, are being led by partners Aimen Mir, Bruce McCulloch, Mary Lehner and Nabeel Youef, special counsel Christine Laciak, counsel Stephanie Brown Cripps, senior associate Ilana Kattan, associate Kat Gross, summer associate Emily Strickland and practice support manager Diane Tuomala. The international team supporting the regulatory and compliance workstream included partner Maria Dreher, senior associate Christopher Wanek and associate Anna Gerstendörfer from our Vienna office; partner Jérôme Philippe, counsel Aude Guyon, associate Alice Cabourdin and intern Basile Marin from our Paris office; partner Hazel Yin, associate Haoyang Zhuo, legal consultants Ethan Qu and Yichen Xing and intern Claire Guan from our China offices and counsel Alexander Viktorov from our Moscow office. ENDS

Jul 12

2 min

Freshfields is representing the Special Committee of PowerSchool Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PWSC), a leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education, in connection with its pending sale to Bain Capital in a transaction valuing the company at $5.6 billion. Details of the transaction can be found here. The Freshfields team included M&A partners Damien Zoubek and Sanjay Murti, and associates Victor Ma and Nicole Johnson; as well as tax partner Claude Stansbury.

Jun 7

1 min