John W. Karol
Partner, Corporate & Financial Services
John Karol is a partner in Willkie’s Corporate & Financial Services Department and Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity Practice Groups. He is based in the Firm’s New York office.
John’s practice focuses on M&A and private equity transactions, both in and outside the U.S. He advises on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic investments, spin-offs, capital raises and other capital markets transactions across a wide range of sectors, including digital infrastructure, technology, media and communications and more. He also advises public and private companies on corporate governance, disclosure and general corporate matters.
Experience
- Biohaven Ltd. in its spin-off from Biohaven Pharmaceuticals in connection with Biohaven Pharmaceuticals’ $11.7 billion acquisition by Pfizer as well as capital markets offerings and disclosure matters
- A leading provider of online travel and related services in its $1.2 billion acquisition of Getaroom from Court Square Capital Partners and its investment in and strategic partnership with Yanolja
- FGS Global in its investment by KKR, on governance and certain U.S. corporate and securities law matters, in connection with its acquisition of Longview Communications and Public Affairs and in connection with KKR’s acquisition of WPP’s full equity position in FGS
- Recruit Holdings, 51job’s largest shareholder in connection with the $4.3 billion LBO of 51job by a buyout group that included 51job’s CEO Rick Yan, Recruit, DCP Capital Partners and Ocean Link Partners
- Symbotic Inc. in its $5.5 billion merger with SVF Investment Corp. 3, a SPAC sponsored by an affiliate of Softbank Investment Advisers, that resulted in Symbotic becoming a public company, its establishment of GreenBox Systems with SoftBank, its inaugural capital markets offering and other corporate governance and disclosure matters
- Tillman Global Holdings in connection with Tillman FiberCo’s strategic partnership with Northleaf Capital Partners, under which funds managed by Northleaf have made an initial investment of $200 million, and in its partnership with Carlyle, in which funds managed by Carlyle’s Global Infrastructure platform have committed up to $1 billion to accelerate Tillman Global’s investments in Tillman Infrastructure
*John advised on some of these matters prior to joining Willkie.
Credentials
Education
Duke University School of Law, J.D., 2018 University of Notre Dame, B.A., 2012