Leif King > Baker McKenzie LLP > New York, United States > Lawyer Profile
Baker McKenzie LLP Offices
452 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10018
NEW YORK
United States
Leif King
Work Department
Corporate and Securities
Position
Leif King leads Baker McKenzie’s Transactional Group in California. Before joining Baker McKenzie in 2019, Leif served as head of Skadden’s transactional group in Northern California, where he had practiced for over 20 years. He represents clients in connection with a wide variety of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, divestitures, recapitalizations, spin-offs and minority investments. Leif regularly advises public and private companies on corporate, corporate governance and securities law compliance issues.
Leif has been featured as a Dealmaker of the Week and Dealmaker of the Month in The American Lawyer, and he has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business every year since 2008. The Daily Journal has named him several times as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California and previously recognized him as one of the Top 20 Under 40 lawyers in the state. He has been recognized by The Recorder as an Attorney of the Year. He has received two California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year awards from California Lawyer magazine and the Daily Journal.
Leif also has repeatedly been selected for inclusion in IFLR1000 and The Best Lawyers in America. He was recognized as a BTI Client Service All-Star for providing outstanding client service, as a Thompson Reuters Stand-out Lawyer in 2024 and named to the 2024 edition of the Legal 500 M&A Powerlist: USA Region.
Career
- Advised Broadcom on its USD 37 billion sale to Avago.
- Advised Plum Creek on its USD 8.4 billion merger with Weyerhaeuser.
- Advised Broadcom on its USD 3.7 billion acquisition of NetLogic Microsystems
- Advised The Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in its USD 3.5 billion investment in Uber.
- Advised the majority shareholders of MagicLab, which owns Badoo, Bumble, Chappy, and Lumen, on the majority stake sale to funds managed by Blackstone, valuing the company at approximately USD 3 billion.
- Advised Wilbur-Ellis on the EUR 3 billion revenue combination of Connell with Caldic.
- Advised SolarCity on its USD 2.6 billion sale to Tesla.
- Advised Mytheresa in its separation from The Neiman Marcus Group and subsequent IPO at a USD 2.2 billion valuation.
- Advised EnergySolutions on its USD 1.1 billion sale to Energy Capital Partners.
- Advised TiVo on its USD 1.1. billion sale to Rovi.
- Advised SJW Group in its USD 1.1 billion acquisition of Connecticut Water Service.
- Advised Tessera Technologies on its USD 850 million acquisition of DTS
- Advised Snowflake on numerous transactions, including its USD 800 million acquisition of Streamlit.
- Advised ServiceNow on numerous transactions, including its USD 500 million acquisition of G2K.
- Advised Cadence Design Systems Inc. on numerous transactions, including its acquisitions of Cascade Technologies, NUMECA International and Pointwise.
- Advised SAP on the sale of its Digital Interconnect group to Sinch.
*includes matters before joining Baker McKenzie.
Lawyer Rankings
United States > M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: large deals ($1bn+)
Clients come to Baker McKenzie LLP for its ‘exceptional negotiation skills’, where the firm’s roster of clients include large multinationals and private equity fund sponsors. Benefiting from its global footprint of offices, the M&A department handles complex cross-border deals, including divestitures and spin-offs, and has experience on both the buy- and sell-side of transactions. The offering is jointly led by New York-based Alan Zoccolillo, who is proficient in the structuring and negotiation of high value M&A, and Chicago’s Michael DeFranco covers global transactions and securities law compliance. David Malliband and Olivia Tyrrell, also in Chicago, are well-versed in cross-border mandates and joint ventures, strategic alliances, and carve-outs, respectively. In Palo Alto, Leif King focuses on private equity investments, while San Francisco-based Derek Liu represents strategic acquirers and venture-backed start-ups in various deals.
Lawyer Rankings
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- International trade and national security > Customs, export controls and economic sanctions
- Media, technology and telecoms > Cyber law (including data privacy and data protection)
- Finance > Project finance
- Tax > US taxes: contentious
Firm Rankings
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: transactional
- Labor and employment > Immigration
- Dispute resolution > International litigation
- Tax > International tax
- Media, technology and telecoms > Outsourcing
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Media, technology and telecoms > Technology transactions
- Labor and employment > Workplace and employment counseling
- Transport > Aviation and air travel: litigation and regulation
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
- M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: large deals ($1bn+)
- International trade and national security > National Security
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Private equity buyouts: middle-market (Up to $500m)
- Energy > Renewable/alternative power
- Intellectual property > Trademarks: non-contentious (including prosecution, portfolio management and licensing)
- Finance > Capital markets: equity offerings
- Antitrust > Cartel
- International trade and national security > CFIUS
- Environment > Environment: regulatory
- Intellectual property > Patents: prosecution (including re-examination and post-grant proceedings)
- Dispute resolution > Product liability, mass tort and class action - defense: consumer products (including tobacco)
- International trade and national security > Trade remedies and trade policy
- Tax > US taxes: non-contentious
- Antitrust > Civil litigation/class actions: defense
- Dispute resolution > International arbitration
- Antitrust > Merger control
- Finance > Restructuring (including bankruptcy): corporate
- Dispute resolution > Corporate investigations and white-collar criminal defense