294.08 sec. 001 - M&A on the Ground: Hostiles, Proxy Fights and the M&A Ecosystem (Fall 2025)
Instructor: Steven Lipin (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 1
Grading Designation: Credit Only
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meetings:
Th 6:25 PM - 8:25 PM
Location: Law 105
From October 09, 2025
To October 16, 2025
F 10:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Location: Law 105
From October 10, 2025
To October 17, 2025
F 3:10 PM - 5:15 PM
Location: Law 105
From October 10, 2025
To October 17, 2025
Course End: October 17, 2025
Class Number: 32464
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 0
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 60
As of: 04/04 07:13 AM
This course is taught by a longtime M&A practitioner through the lens of active dealmaking. Steve Lipin runs Gladstone Place Partners, a strategic public relations/investor relations firm specializing in financial transactions, and earlier in his career covered M&A and was finance editor at The Wall Street Journal.
This lively and entertaining class will give students a real-world perspective on hostile takeovers, offense and defense, activist proxy fights, the marketing of an M&A deal, the rise of SPACS as an M&A alternative to IPOS, and other topics.
The class will attempt to look at examples through the prism of both offense and defense, and include the financial, legal, investor relations, and communications strategies each side deploys.
This class will lean heavily on case studies of deals and contested transactions, some of which Steve worked on, and the class will include guest speakers who are part of the M&A ecosystem, which includes media, bankers, arbitrageurs, shareholder activists, PR/IR firms, and others. Becoming aware of this ecosystem now will make you a better deal lawyer later.
Case studies include:
InBev's hostile bid for Anheuser-Busch
AB InBev’s bid $100 billion bid for SAB Miller PLC
Elon Musk's bid for Twitter
The Walt Disney's defense against Nelson Peltz (twice)
The Rise and Fall of SPACs
We also have special academic rules for these condensed courses:
-Students must attend each course session and cannot attend any course session remotely (even for illness or emergency situations).
-The Registrar’s Office will drop a student who does not attend each course session.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
Exam Notes: (P) Final Paper
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Business Law
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