Brandon Van Dyke

Brandon Van Dyke focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions and corporate and securities law matters. Mr. Van Dyke has represented acquirers, targets and financial advisors in a number of significant U.S. and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, takeovers (both negotiated and contested), leveraged buyouts and other corporate matters. In addition, he has provided transactional advice to companies implementing corporate restructuring plans.

Industries in which Mr. Van Dyke has had substantial transactional involvement include media and entertainment, mining and metals, chemicals, pharmaceutical and health care. Representations and transactions include:

• DuPont in numerous transactions, including:
  • responding to a proxy contest commenced by Trian Fund Management, L.P., a representation recognized in the Financial Times’ 2015 North America “Innovative Lawyers” report;
  • its simultaneous sale of a portion of its global crop protection business to FMC Corporation and acquisition of FMC’s Health and Nutrition business;
  • the tax-free spin-off of its global performance chemicals business into a separate public company;
  • its $6.6 billion acquisition of Danisco A/S by tender offer, one of the largest transactions in the history of Denmark up to that time;
• DowDuPont in its announced separation into three independent public companies;
• Twenty-First Century Fox in its:
  • pending $66 billion acquisition by the Walt Disney Company and the related pre-merger spin-off of certain businesses;
  • pending $14.8 billion acquisition of the remaining stake in Sky plc that it does not already own;
• Endo Health Solutions in its $1.6 billion acquisition of Paladin Labs Inc. (Canada) through the formation of a new Irish holding company;
• Gilead Sciences, Inc. in its $11 billion acquisition of Pharmasset, Inc., a transaction that was recognized in the 2012 Financial Times “US Innovative Lawyers” report;
• Medtronic, Inc. in its $487 million sale of its Physio-Control division to affiliates of Bain Capital, LLC;
• AMC Entertainment, Inc. in its $2 billion sale to J.P. Morgan Partners and Apollo Partners Limited.

Mr. Van Dyke also has advised several of Skadden’s investment banking clients as financial advisors in various public merger and acquisition transactions, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase as financial advisors to Pfizer in its $68 billion merger with Wyeth.

In addition, Mr. Van Dyke has advised clients with respect to responding to unsolicited acquisition proposals, stockholder activist approaches and other corporate preparedness matters, SEC reporting obligations, board governance, and other corporate and securities law matters.

Education:

• J.D., Harvard Law School, 2001
• B.A., Columbia University, Columbia College, 1998 (magna cum laude)

Admissions : New York