The US M&A Landscape in a Shifting Policy Environment

Sarah Morgan co-heads V&E’s Mergers & Acquisitions and Capital Markets practice group and is a member of the firm’s partnership admissions committee.  She is an experienced securities lawyer who focuses on capital-raising transactions for clients in the energy industry and other sectors. Sarah represents public companies, private companies, investment banks, management teams and private equity in all forms of capital-raising transactions, including IPOs, registered offerings of debt and equity securities, private placements of debt and equity securities, preferred equity investments, at-the-market continuous offering programs (ATMs), tender offers, exchange offers and private debt exchanges. She advises clients, including public companies and their boards of directors, on securities disclosure, corporate governance and compliance matters and ESG matters.

She also advises companies and private equity funds concerning mergers, acquisitions, disposition and separation transactions, including significant experience regarding combinations with Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and spin-off transactions.

A highly skilled practitioner, Sarah has extensive knowledge of securities law and has been recognized by Chambers USA (nationwide and in Texas for Debt and Equity Capital Markets) and Legal 500 US, and she has been named a Texas Rising Star by Super Lawyers. She was also selected to be included in the BTI Client Service All-Stars list. An interviewee cited in her Chambers 2021 profile described Sarah as a “fierce advocate for her clients” and a “tremendous lawyer.”

Sarah serves as a sponsor member of the Houston chapter of WCD (Women Corporate Directors). She also serves on the board of directors of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Houston.

Mark Shafir is the Co-Head of Global Mergers & Acquisitions at Citi. Prior to joining Citi in 2008, Mark was Head of Global M&A at Lehman Brothers. He has over 35 years of experience advising clients and leading top M&A teams. Selected recent transactions include: WPX - Devon Energy, LVMH – Tiffany, Apollo – Tech Data, Occidental – Anadarko, Broadcom – Symantec Enterprise Unit, Disney – Fox and Southern Company – Sale of Gulf Power.

Mark is on the Board of Governors of Multiplying Good, the largest and most prestigious platform for public service in America and on the Board of Trustees of The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History. He is a frequent contributor to CNBC and Bloomberg television on M&A matters.

Mark Williams is Chief Revenue Officer, Americas at Datasite, a position he has held since 2015.

In his role, Mark is responsible for setting and executing the sales strategy across the region, including leading over 130 sales representatives and sales leaders across the United States, Canada and Latin America. He is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Prior to joining Datasite, Mark held several sales leadership roles in a variety of SaaS companies. Most recently, he served as Chief Revenue Officer at SmartFocus, a cloud-based digital marketing platform provider. Prior, Mark was Vice President of Sales for Kno, an Andreesen Horowitz backed Education Technology startup, acquired by Intel.

Mark graduated with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Humberside University, England.

Since 2015 Daniel Zwirn has been Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Arena Investors LP, a $2.2 billion global investment firm with offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Dublin, and Jacksonville focusing on global special situations asset and credit investments in corporates, real estate, structured finance, and corporate securities.

From 2009 through 2015, he founded and/or led several specialty finance enterprises including Applied Data Finance (a consumer finance company), North Mill Capital (an asset-based lender), North Mill Equipment (an equipment lessor), and Lantern Endowment Partners (an investment fund).

From 2001 through 2009, he founded and served as Managing Partner of D.B. Zwirn & Co., a $6 billion global special situations firm originally co-founded by, and spun off from, Highbridge Capital Management, for which he also served as Managing Director and founder of the Special Opportunities Group. During 2000 and 2001, he founded and created the Special Opportunities Group of MSD Capital, the private investment firm of Michael Dell.

He currently serves as Senior Trustee of the Brookings Institution, Executive Board Member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, and on the Board of Overseers for the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously served on the Leadership Council of the Robin Hood Foundation, the Board of Trustees of Barnard College of Columbia University, and the Board of Trustees of the New York Public Theater.

He has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School (1998) as well as a B.S. Econ. and a B.A.S. (C.S.) from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business (1993) and Moore School of Electrical Engineering (1993), respectively.

Ortenca Aliaj is the FT's mergers and acquisitions correspondent in New York and she is also a member of the Due Diligence team. Prior to joining the FT in 2019, Ortenca covered the hedge fund industry.