Margaret A. Brown
Partner, Boston
Mergers and Acquisitions,
Corporate and Securities Law
Margaret A. Brown is head of the firm’s Boston office. She works on a wide variety of
corporate and securities matters, including mergers and acquisitions and capital markets
transactions. Ms. Brown also counsels clients on a broad range of business-related matters,
including directors’ duties and responsibilities and other aspects of corporate governance,
disclosure issues, corporate compliance matters and internal investigations.
Notable transactions Ms. Brown has handled include representing:
-- EMC Corporation in its pending $67 billion acquisition by Denali Holding Inc., the parent
company of Dell Inc.;
T: 617.573.4815
F: 617.305.4815
margaret.brown@skadden.com
Education
J.D., Boston College Law School, 1979
(cum laude; Articles Editor, Boston
College Law Review)
-- Boise Inc., a manufacturer of packaging products and paper, in its $1.3 billion acquisition
by Packaging Corporation of America; and in several prior offerings of senior notes;
-- OfficeMax Incorporated in its merger of equals with Office Depot, Inc.;
-- Arthur T. Demoulas in the acquisition by Mr. Demoulas and the other Class B shareholders
of Demoulas Super Markets, Inc. (Market Basket) of the shares of the company previously
held by Arthur S. Demoulas and the other Class A shareholders;
-- Novell Inc. in the sale of its intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation, and the subsequent
acquisition of Novell by Attachmate Corporation;
B.A., Holy Cross College, 1976
-- Vocus, Inc., a provider of cloud-based marketing and public relations software, in its $467
million acquisition by an affiliate of GTCR, LLC, a private equity firm;
Bar Admissions
-- EMC Corporation as part of a consortium, including Apple Inc., Ericsson, Microsoft
Corporation, Research In Motion Limited (now known as BlackBerry Limited) and Sony
Corporation in their $4.5 billion acquisition of a patent portfolio from Nortel Networks
Corporation;
Massachusetts
Associations
Member, Board of Trustees, and
Chair of the Board of Governors, Tufts
Medical Center
Member of the Board, Tufts Medical
Center Trust
Massachusetts Judicial Nominating
Commission (2005-2007)
Publications
Co-Author, “Mergers & Acquisitions:
Massachusetts Courts Reject Injunction
Attempts,” The Boston Bar Journal, Fall
2010
-- EMC Corporation in its acquisitions of Virtustream Group Holdings, Inc.; DSSD, Inc.;
Aveksa, Inc.; Isilon Systems, Inc.; Data Domain, Inc.; RSA Security Inc.; Internosis, Inc.;
Rainfinity; Documentum, Inc.; VMware, Inc.; Softworks, Inc.; and Data General Corporation; and in its spin-off of McDATA Corporation;
-- VMware, Inc., a software developer and a subsidiary of EMC Corporation, in its $1.26
billion acquisition of Nicira, Inc. and its $1.1 billion initial public offering of Class A
common stock;
-- Upromise, Inc. in its acquisition by SLM Corporation (commonly known as Sallie Mae);
-- Spectrum Brands, Inc. (formerly Rayovac Corporation) in its debt financings of the acquisitions of United Industries Corporation and Remington Products Corporation;
-- the special committee of the board of directors of Spectrum Brands, Inc. in Spectrum’s
acquisition of United Industries Corporation;
-- Boise Cascade Corporation in the sale of its paper and forest products businesses to an
investor group led by Madison Dearborn Partners;
-- Alpha Industries, Inc. in its acquisitions of the wireless communications business of
Conexant Systems, Inc. and of Network Device Inc.;
1 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Margaret A. Brown
Continued
-- the underwriters in offerings by Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.;
Critical Therapeutics, Inc. and others;
-- Unitrode Corporation in its acquisition of Benchmarq Microelectronics, Inc. and its acquisition by Texas Instruments Incorporated;
and
-- Stratus Computer, Inc. in its acquisition by Ascend Communications, Inc. and thereafter Ascend Communications, Inc. in its
acquisition by Lucent Technologies Inc.
Ms. Brown was named “Dealmaker of the Week” by The Am Law
Daily for her role advising EMC in its acquisition of Data Domain
and The American Lawyer selected her as a “Dealmaker of the Year”
for her work on VMware’s IPO. In addition, Ms. Brown has been
selected as a leading lawyer in Chambers USA: America’s Leading
Lawyers for Business since 2004 and The Best Lawyers in America
since 2006. She also was selected for inclusion in Chambers Global:
The World’s Leading Lawyers in Business 2014 and 2015. In addition, Ms. Brown was named Best Lawyers’ 2017 and 2012 Boston
Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyer of the Year and its 2016 Boston
Corporate Lawyer of the Year, and was recognized in the M&A category in IFLR1000. She was named as a worldwide leading lawyer
in Euromoney Institutional Investor’s 2015 Banking Finance and
Transactional Expert Guide. The International Law Office selected
Ms. Brown as a winner of the 2013 ILO Client Choice Awards in
recognition of her excellence in client service.
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