Neill Jakobe is a member of Ropes & Gray’s governing management committee, having previously served as co-head of its global private equity practice and head of the Chicago office. Focusing on private equity buyouts and strategic M&A, Neill has helped steer an international roster of clients through complex deals ranging in size from tens of millions to billions of dollars. Neill’s global client base includes the sponsors listed below, in addition to BDT Capital, McNally Capital, Mitsubishi, Xerox, Takeda, Hershey and others.

Neill offers clients rare insight into the dealmaking process. In addition to his legal experience structuring, negotiating and closing complex deals, Neill has firsthand transactional experience from his work as an investment banker with the Financial Sponsors Group at Morgan Stanley. He has evaluated acquisitions from a financial perspective, developed financial models, arranged equity and debt financing, and worked on a number of transactions (including IPOs, LBOs and other M&A) on the finance side. Neill’s understanding of the business side of a deal allows him to anticipate his clients’ needs throughout the life cycle of a transaction and take a pragmatic approach in complex negotiations.

Neill’s earlier experience as a securities litigator also benefits clients with corporate governance issues, as he can help identify and analyze the types of securities issues that often lead to litigation in this era of shareholder activism and an activist plaintiffs’ bar. Early in his career, Neill was a member of litigation teams handling high-profile securities fraud matters, including a number of actions arising from the bankruptcy of Enron. 

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan Law School, Neill has lived and worked in the Midwest for the last 15 years, and he possesses an in-depth knowledge of the region’s private equity and venture capital communities.

Experience

  • Represented Baring Private Equity in most of its North American and majority of global transactions, including the take-private of Virtusa Corporation, acquisition of Citius Tech, acquisition of NIIT, carve-out of Telus’ BPO business, acquisition and pending sale of St. George’s University, acquisition of Lumenis and subsequent carve-out sale of Lumenis’ surgical business to Boston Scientific and acquisition of Hinduja Global.
  • Represented GHO Capital in all of its North American platform acquisitions and many of their recent global transactions, including the acquisition of Envision Pharmaceuticals, Velocity Clinical, the acquisition and sale of Caprion, the acquisition and sale of DNA Diagnostic Centers, the acquisition of X-Chem, the acquisition of Biocare Medical, the acquisition of Genesis Research and many others.
  • Represented Centerbridge and The Vistria Group in their acquisition of Help at Home, Adaptive Health, Civitas, and Centerbridge in its acquisition of Medical Solutions.
  • Represented the Vistria Group  on a number of Healthcare and other transactions, including Homecare Holdings, Mission Healthcare, Homefree Pharmacy, Pantherx, Medalogix, AIS Healthcare, SCA Pharma and a variety of other transactions
  • Represented Bain and Blackstone in their sale of the digital business of The Weather Company to IBM, and Bain’s majority equity funding of Quva Pharma Inc. and acquisition of 503B assets from Healix Inc.
  • Represented Cressey and Company in most of its recent transactions, most recently including the sale of PurFoods, sale of Statlab, sale of VetCor and a number of acquisitions (D4C, Statlab, Purfoods, VetCor, PPV and others), also in its sale of Strategic Healthcare Programs to Roper Industries.
  • Represented BV Investment Partners in a number of matters, including the sale of Butterfield Fulcrum group and FORS Limited, investment in and sale of Critical Mix, investment in geoLogic systems, investment in C-4 Analytics and investment in and sale of Civic Plus, investment in Intelliteach, investment in and sale of Franco Signor, acquisition of Level Data and a variety of other transactions.
  • Represented Mitsubishi Bank and its affiliates in a variety of transactions, including the acquisition of Meridian Fund Services Group, acquisition of UBS Global Asset Management's administrative funds business, Guggenheim's 40 Act fund administration business, and Neuberger Berman's private equity fund administration business.
  • Represented McNally Capital in its acquisition of ITS Logistics, acquisition of Dedicated Computing, investment in Genesys Aerosystems and investment in Europa Sports Products, among other matters.
  • Represented GI Partners on its acquisitions of Aras, Daxko, Clinical Ink, Rectangle Health, GTY Corp. and other matters.
  • Represented The Hershey Company in its acquisition of Pirate Brands Group.
  • Represented Jacobs Holding AG in its acquisition of North American Dental Group.
  • Represented Coca Cola Bottling Company in its acquisition of bottling assets and territory rights from Coca Cola Company in Northern Florida, Central Florida and Southern Florida.
  • Represented Cardinal System Holdings in its acquisition of Ag-Pro Texas.
  • Representing Biomet, Inc. in its sale to Zimmer Holdings, Inc. for $12.35 billion.
  • Represented Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and CareSpot in their roll-up of urgent care centers, investment in Renal Advantage, sale of Renal Advantage to Liberty Dialysis, investment in CareSpot and sale of CareSpot.
  • Represented TPG in its acquisition of Immucor, Inc., a leading provider of instrument-reagent systems to the blood transfusion industry, and sale of Fenwal to Fresenius Kabi.

Areas of Practice