Profile: John G Finley

Mergers and Acquisitions

Biography: Mergers and Acquisitions

John G Finley is a member of the mergers and acquisitions group of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. He also serves on the firm's executive committee. Transactions he has handled in recent years include Mars's announced acquisition of Wrigley (2008); Claire's Stores sale to a private equity firm (2007), VNU's sale to a private equity consortium (2006); CBS's sale of Paramount Parks to Cedar Fair (2006); the sale of Toys 'R' Us to a private equity consortium (2005) and the sale of Neiman Marcus to a private equity consortium (2005).

Mr Finley was featured in the American Lawyer's "Dealmakers of the Year" in 2005 and 1999. He was recently recognised as one of 15 of the "Most Highly Regarded Individuals" in global M&A by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers and was also named in "The Best of the Best - USA 2007" in a survey by International Financial Law Review listing of the top 25 M&A lawyers in the United States.

Mr Finley is a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance. He is a frequent author and speaker at conferences on mergers and acquisitions and is Chairman of the Annual International Mergers & Acquisitions Conference of the International Bar Association. He has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School and NYU Law School.

Mr Finley has a BS in Economics (1978) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in History (1978) from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, and a JD (1981) from Harvard Law School.

Corporate Governance

Biography: Corporate Governance

John G Finley is a member of the mergers and acquisitions group of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. He also serves on the firm's executive committee. Transactions he has handled include: Claire's Stores announced sale to a private equity consortium (2007); VNU's sale to a private equity consortium (2006); CBS's sale of Paramount Parks to Cedar Fair (2006); the sale of Neiman Marcus to a private equity consortium (2005); the sale of Toys "R" Us to a private equity consortium (2005); the business combination of Kmart with Sears (2005); the sale of Grey Global to the WPP Group (2005); and the acquisition of Time Warner's Warner Music Group by a private equity consortium consisting of Edgar Bronfman Jr, Bain Capital, Providence Equity Partners and Thomas H Lee Partners (2003). Other notable transactions have included the sale of Harcourt General to Reed Elsevier (2001) and Seagram's business combination with Vivendi and Canal Plus (2000). He has also represented financial advisers in connection with mergers and acquisitions matters, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers.

Mr Finley was featured in the American Lawyer's 'Dealmakers of the Year' in 2005 and 1999. Mr Finley is a frequent author and speaker at conferences on mergers and acquisitions including conferences sponsored by, among others, the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, the UCLA Law Institute on mergers and acquisitions and the Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions of the University of Miami School of Law. He is chairman of the international annual mergers & acquisitions conference of the International Bar Association.

Mr Finley has served on the committee on securities regulation of the New York State Bar Association, the board of directors of the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights and the board of advisers of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship programme in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University. He has also served as co-chairman of the committee on business organisations of the International Bar Association. He is currently a trustee of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services.

Mr Finley has a BS in Economics (1978) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in History (1978) from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, and a JD (1981) from Harvard Law School.