Joseph Halloum

About Joseph Halloum

Joseph represents private equity sponsors and public and private companies in a wide range of significant transactions and investments, corporate governance issues and securities law matters. He routinely advises boards of directors, management teams, and sponsors and their investment professionals on M&A tactics, fiduciary duty matters, investment and regulatory compliance, investigations, activism, and media and PR matters.

Joseph is regularly called upon for his broad-based transactional experience in high-profile and complex M&A and private capital investments, including LBOs, strategic sales, carve-outs, tender offers, take-privates and exits, joint ventures, domestic and cross-border transactions, growth equity, PIPEs and toe-hold investments in public companies, IPOs and SPAC transactions, debt and equity financings, restructurings and recapitalizations, and SEC compliance matters.

He has also represented numerous companies and boards in connection with large shareholder matters and activist defense and unsolicited takeover situations, the majority of which remain confidential. Among publicly disclosed situations, he has advised TriNet Group with matters involving its largest shareholder Atairos Group, Del Frisco’s in its settlement with Engaged Capital, Yahoo! in its settlement with Third Point, Autodesk in its settlements with Sachem Head Capital and Eminence Capital, and Tessera Technologies in its settlement with Starboard Value.

Joseph was recently listed on the "M&A Powerlist" by Legal 500, named 2022 "Lawyers on the Fast Track" at the California Legal Awards, recognized with a 2019 California “Trailblazer” award by The Recorder, ranked from 2019-2023 as a Super Lawyers “Rising Star” for M&A and has been consistently named in IFLR1000. He was also recognized by The Daily Journal with a 2016 California Lawyer “Attorney of the Year” award for his work on the Broadcom-Avago merger.

Joseph is actively involved with his alma mater, UC Berkeley. In the Fall 2024 semester, he will be teaching Corporate M&A at Berkeley Law. He is the Founder and Co-Chair of the GC Executive Fellowship Program launched in partnership with Berkeley Law. The program brings together select Bay Area general counsel from leading technology and life sciences companies and private equity firms to network with their peers and discuss emerging business and legal issues.

Supplementing his active involvement advancing a variety of programs at Berkeley Law and the Berkeley Haas School of Business, Joseph founded and oversees the Emma and Joseph H. Halloum Business Competition and Negotiation Competition. The Business Competition is the first and only one in the nation to combine the disciplines of a university's law school and graduate business school in a negotiation case competition. The Negotiation Competition is an internal honors competition at Berkeley Law which aims to develop corporate law negotiation skills for first-year law students.

Recent work

Private Equity Deals

• Zeus Company on its $3.4 billion sale to EQT Partners.
• CVC Capital on various matters, including its $470 million minority investment in Aleph Holding and subsequent IPO plans.
• Mulliez portfolio company Foundever on numerous confidential and pending investments and acquisitions, including its $2.2 billion take-private of Sykes Enterprises, sale of portfolio company ClearLink Technologies to Clarke Capital Partners, and minority equity and debt investments in XSELL Technologies.
• Vista Equity Partners on numerous acquisitions, including its $1.55 billion acquisition and split up of The Advisory Board Company’s education business, $1.6 billion take-private of Infoblox, $564 million acquisition of Xactly, $2 billion take-private of Apptio and $2 billion take-private of MINDBODY.
• HGGC on various matters, including its acquisition of Zoo Printing, $825 million take-private of Monotype Imaging, $555 million take-private of RPX and $450 million acquisition of Nutraceutical.
• Fortress on its $440 million co-investment and acquisition of Perry Ellis.
• Vector Capital and Sizmek, on their acquisition of Rocket Fuel.
• Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group on its $650 million sale to L Catterton.
• Ares Management and Smart & Final Stores on its $1.12 billion sale to Apollo Global Management.
• Permira Funds on various matters, including its $1.1 billion sale of Renaissance Learnings to Hellman & Friedman, and its $5 billion sale of NDS Group to Cisco Systems.
• Parthenon Capital Partners on various matters, including its $1.05 billion sale of Cayan to TSYS, and sale of Eliza Corp. to HMS.
• Olympus Partners on various matters, including its sale of NPC International, the largest Pizza Hut and Wendy’s franchisee, to Durational Capital, and its simultaneous acquisitions of supply chain technology providers MEBC Global and Plantensive.
• Peak Rock Capital on numerous matters, including its acquisition of Sweet Harvest Foods and Pretzels, Inc.
• True Wind Capital on its acquisition of ARI Network Services.
• WL Ross & Co. on its $500 million SPAC and subsequent $1.6 billion acquisition of Nexeo Solutions.
• Macquarie Capital, as co-sponsor, in the Hydra Industries SPAC IPO.
• Fox Paine & Co. on various matters, including its sale of Penhaligon's and L'Artisan Parfumeur to PUIG and acquisition of Global Indemnity.

Strategic Deals

• Ericsson on various matters, including its $6.2 billion acquisition of Vonage and sale of its IoT Accelerator and Connected Vehicle Cloud businesses to Aeris Communications.
• Aristocrat Leisure on its $1.2 billion acquisition of Nasdaq-listed Neogames
• ServiceNow on its acquisition of Era Software, Inc
• Zymergen on its $300 million sale to Ginkgo Bioworks—the first-ever sale of a publicly-listed public benefit corporation.
• Entain in connection with DraftKings’ $22.4 billion and MGM’s $11 billion takeover offers.
• Saint-Gobain on its $2.3 billion acquisition of GCP Applied Technologies.
• Delphi Technologies on its $3.3 billion sale to BorgWarner.
• Broadcom on numerous matters, including its $37 billion sale to Avago Technologies; $164 million carve-out acquisition of LTE-related assets from Renesas Electronics; and $3.7 billion acquisition of NetLogic Microsystem.
• LSI Corp. on its $6.6 billion sale to Avago Technologies.
• Lattice Semiconductor on its $600 million acquisition of Silicon Image.
• Yahoo! on several matters, including in connection with Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO and sale of a $16 billion ownership stake in Alibaba in a series of transactions; and agreements with Alibaba and Softbank on the $4 billion restructuring of Alibaba’s Alipay business.
• Dell on its $2.4 billion acquisition of Quest Software.
• The Walt Disney Company on its $4.05 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm.
• Steinway Musical on its $512 million sale to Paulson & Co.