Deal Diary: Gibson, Wachtell Lead VMware Sale to Broadcom

  • Last Updated 23 Jun 2022 12:52
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Broadcom taps Wachtell Lipton, O'Melveny, Cleary and a slew of banks on a $61 billion deal for VMware, which is using Gibson Dunn, Goldman and JPM.

Barbara L. Becker, Saee Muzumdar and Andrew Kaplan of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP advised VMware Inc. (VMW) on an agreement to sell to Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) for $61 billion in cash and stock announced Thursday, May 26. Broadcom will also assume $8 billion in debt on the deal.

Stephan Feldgoise, Sam Britton and Ryan Nolan at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Madhu Namburi, Ilene Chau, Rod Reed and Drago Rajkovic at JPMorgan Securities LLC are giving financial advice to VMware, a cloud computing company based in Palo Alto, Calif. VMware general counsel Amy Olli and deputy general counsel Craig Norris are on the deal internally.

Gibson Dunn represented VMware’s board of directors when Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL) spun its 81% stake in VMware out to Dell shareholders last year and advised the company on its $2.7 billion purchase of Pivotal Software Inc. in 2019 and an $11 billion cash dividend to VMware stockholders that was part of Dell’s 2018 IPO. Dell acquired VMware as part of its $67 billion purchase of EMC Corp. in 2016.

Broadcom, a San Jose, Calif.-based semiconductor manufacturer, tapped David Karp, Ronald Chen and Viktor Sapezhnikov of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz along with Adit Khorana of O’Melveny & Myers LLP for counsel. George Cary, Daniel Culley, Francisco Enrique González-Díaz and Cunzhen Huang of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP are antitrust counsel to the buyer, which for financial advice is using Richard Hardegree, Laurence Braham, Ben Freeland and Akhil Ahuja at Barclays Capital Inc.; Kevin Brunner, Ron Eliasek Johnny Williams, David King and Derek Chao at BofA Securities Inc.; Citigroup Global Markets Inc.; David Wah, Steven Geller, Ernie Ruehl, Andrew Modelski, Jon Gegenheimer and Andrew Delia at Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC; Morgan Stanley; and Wells Fargo Securities LLC.

Wachtell Lipton’s Gregory Pessin is advising Broadcom on the $32 billion in financing for the deal, while Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP is working with the banks. Chief legal and corporate affairs officer Mark Brazeal and deputy general counsel Connie Chen worked on the deal at Broadcom.

Wachtell Lipton advised Broadcom on its 2019 purchase of Symantec Corp.’s enterprise business and its $18.9 billion purchase of CA Inc. and its $950 million sale of Veracode Inc. to Thoma Bravo LP, both 2018 deals. The law firm also represented the company on its 2018 hostile bid for Qualcomm Inc., an effort killed by Cfius.

Silver Lake Partners, which owns 10% of VMware, turned to Atif Azher, William Dougherty and Naveed Anwar of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP for counsel. Co-CEO Egon Durban, managing directors Joerg Adams and Kyle Paster and principal Arian Khansari are on the investment at Silver Lake, where chief legal officer Karen King and general counsel Andrew Schader are on the legal side.

Michael Dell, who owns 42% of VMware, turned to Steven Rosenblum and Gordon Moodie at Wachtell Lipton. Rosenblum advised Michael Dell and his investment vehicle MSD Capital on the 2014 buyout of Dell Inc. and on Dell’s purchase of EMC. Michael Dell teamed with Silver Lake on the buyout.

 

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